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LECTURES ON THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 



CUMMING'S WORKS. 



UNIFORM EDITION. 



LINDSAY & BLAKISTON 



CUMMING'S APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES; 

Or, Lectures on the Book of Revelation. One vol. 12mo. Cloth. 

CUMMING'S APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES. 

Second Series. One vol. 12mo. Cloth. 

CUMMING'S LECTURES ON OUR LORD'S MIRACLES. 

One vol. 12mo. Cloth. 

CUMMING'S LECTURES ON THE PARABLES. 

One vol. 12mo. Cloth. 

CUMMING'S PROPHETIC STUDIES; 

Or, Lectures on the Book of Daniel. One vol. 12mo. Cloth. 

Price 75 cts. per volume, and sent hy mail, free of postage, upon receipt of 
this amount by the publishers. 



The Rev. John Cumming, D.D., is now the great pulpit orator of London, 
as Edward Irving was some twenty years since. But very different is the 
Doctor to that strange, wonderfully eloquent, but erratic man. There could 
not by possibility be a greater contrast. The one all fire, enthusiasm, and 
semi-madness ; the other a man of chastened energy and convincing calmness. 
The one like a meteor, flashing across a troubled sky, and then vanishing 
suddenly in the darkness ; the other like a silver star, shining serenely, and 
illuminating our pathway with its steady ray. He is looked upon as the great 
champion of Protestantism in its purest form. His church is densely crowded 
by the most intellectual and thinking part of that crowded city, while his 
writings have reached a sale unequalled by those of any theological writer of 
the present day. His great work on the "Apocalypse," upon which his great 
reputation as a writer rests, having already reached its 15th edition in England, 
while his "Lectures on the Miracles," and those on "Daniel," have passed 
through six editions of 1000 copies each, and his "Lectures on the Parables" 
through four editions, all within a comparatively short time. 



IJrffplrfk Jlittfes* 



LECTUEES 



THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 



BY 



THE REV. JOHN GUMMING, D.D. 

MINISTER OF THE SCOTCH NATIONAL CHURCH, AUTHOR OF APOCALYPTIC SKETCHES, 
LECTURES ON THE MIRACLES, PARAELBS, ETC. ETC. 



" We have also a more sure word of prophecy ; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, 
as unto a light that shine th in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise 
in your hearts." — 2 Pet. i. 19. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
LINDSAY AND BLAKISTON. 

1854. * 






t>6<° 



Gift 
Mrs.Hennen Jennings 
April 26. 1933 



PKEFACE, 



In these Lectures on Daniel the Prophet, there will be 
found scarcely a single discovery or application of pro- 
phetic symbol which is not already familiar to all students 
of prophecy. They were not prepared for the learned : 
they are addressed to the multitude. I have paid some 
attention to the critical investigation of this ancient and 
instructive prophecy ; I have studied more or less closely 
the varied and interesting exegeses of many learned and 
laborious critics, and from these I have derived much 
information ; but in these pages I do not attempt to pre- 
sent an analysis of such labours, or to enunciate the com- 
ponent elements of the conclusions I have formed, and 
herein expressed. I find it takes all my strength, as well as 
all I have learned and read, to enable me to make my mean- 
ing plain. I am satisfied in these Studies to appeal to, and 
interest and instruct the masses. One may appreciate the 
honour of speaking to scholars, but feel still more the duty 
of addressing mankind. I rejoice at witnessing the loftiest 
forms so splendidly occupied as they now are. I pray 
they may be covered with yet greater and more illustrious 



6 PREFACE. 

scholarship. I am content to stand below and, learning 
daily as I do from the master spirits above me, to spread 
far and wide what I have gathered, in the most intelligible 
and acceptable words, among the "thousands of Israel."* 
I have invariably tried to bring out not only the doctrinal, 
but the practical and comforting truths" which are more or 
less latent in the sublime and mysterious predictions and 
symbols of the future. I have not, I trust, forgotten indi- 
vidual responsibility and requirement in my endeavours to 
trace out the course of the Church, the fall of dynasties, 
and the revolutions of empires, as they are delineated on 
the prophetic chart, and by no means obscurely predicted 
by the spirit of prophecy. 

In this, as in every portion of the word of God, -there 
are proclaimed grand saving truths. Amid the foliage of 
prophecy — amid the flowers of poetry — in the details of 
biography, and in the long annals of national or universal 
history, truths profitable or refreshing or sanctifying to the 
soul flash forth continually. God in Providence never 
omits to feed the minutest insect in his provision for the 
greatest and the most important of created intelligences. In 
his Word there is living bread for the soul of the humblest, 
as well as warning and instruction and reproof for kings 
and nations. In the pages of the Prophets, as truly, if 
not as fully as in the pages of the Evangelists, such truths 

* The critical disquisitions of Hengstenberg, the eloquent and philosophical 
investigations of Birks — not to speak of Mede, Wintle, and the two Newtons — 
are truly valuable. Stuart, as usual on prophetic subjects, is not to be trusted. 



PREFACE. 7 

as the following are written : " Sin has entered, and death 
by sin." The world was not made as we find it; it has 
undergone some dread and terrible disaster. Ask the phi- 
losopher to explain this, and he is dumb ! Ask nature her- 
self, through any of her oracles, and she, too, is dumb ! 
Her groans, that have not ceased since the creation, are 
the only replies to your question. But consult the Scrip- 
tures ; inquire at them, What is at fault ? Their reply is, 
Sin has entered, and death by sin. The earth was created 
holy and beautiful. God pronounced it good. Man's sin 
has unhinged it. Every flower was once fragrance ; every 
sound was once harmony ; every sight was beauty ; but sin 
has fallen upon the earth, like a drop of ink on the sensi- 
tive blotting-paper, encircling with its poisonous influence 
the widest sphere, until the whole earth is tainted — 
stricken, as it were, with paralysis, groaning in travail, 
waiting for redemption. The intellect is darkened by the 
exhalations arising from the swamps of sin. The truth is 
not seen in its beauty ; not because it is dimly enunciated, 
but because the eye of him who looks upon it has become 
dim. The conscience also has become depraved, diseased, 
polluted. What a change has passed upon that faculty 
which was once the echo of the voice of God — the bright 
daguerreotype reflection of his own holy image! It too 
labours, as if anxious to be emancipated — to regain its 
lost sovereignty, and govern once more the heart and the 
affections of the soul. 

Not only is the conscience and heart of man diseased, 



8 PREFACE. 

but out of that heart in which God once dwelt — once the 
holy chancel, as it were, of created being — proceed adul- 
tery, murders, thefts, and all uncleanness. The gold has 
become dim, the fine gold has changed, man is altogether 
degenerate ; and this change, this dread affliction, is not 
individual, peculiar, limited, but universal; there is no 
spot upon the earth it has not reached — no climate where 
it is not felt. It has entered the hut of the Indian, the 
cave of the Greenlander, the cabin of the semi-savage 
Irishman, the cottage of the peasant, and the palace of 
the king; its voice mingles with the debates of parlia- 
ment, congress, and divan. It colours all circumstances ; 
it is seen in the flames of hamlets, and heard in the roar 
of revolution; it rides on the storm. 1848 was an inci- 
dental testimony of what sin is ; all history shows it has 
made Golgotha and Aceldama but too plainly the types 
of earth and humanity. 

Man has sinned, and therefore he suffers. The Bible 
also testifies of the curse brought upon us in consequence 
of sin. The instant man sinned, Jesus stood between the 
living and the dead — modified and stayed the full rush of 
the terrible curse which sin had brought on ; but the time 
does come, and the place will be, when that curse created 
by sin shall descend in all its pressure on some, and wither 
down to the very roots all happiness and peace, close every 
spring of joy, and open up, at every point of the circum- 
ference of their existence, streams of misery immense, 
ceaseless. 



PREFACE. 9 

We have not only sinned and suffered, but we cannot 
help ourselves out of it. We are not only without holi- 
ness, but without strength ; no man can recover himself. 
All the popes, bishops, prelates, or councils in Christen- 
dom can no more change the heart of man, than they can 
create a fixed star, or soar to the sun. I will believe they 
can do it, when they will stand upon the grave of another 
Lazarus, and say, Come forth; and when Lazarus, the 
dead, in obedience to such command, shall come forth, 
and take his place among the living. What is the history 
of the world without God but a history of successive efforts 
and successive failures to regenerate itself? What is Pan- 
theism, but man's vain effort to regenerate man ? What 
are Popery and Puseyism, but priestly and abortive efforts 
to regenerate man ? What is Christianity, but God's his- 
torical and never-failing success in the regeneration of 
man? 

It is wrong for infidels to quote Aristides, Socrates, 
Plato, Alfred, and subsequent names, and say these are 
types of humanity ; they are not so. They are the excep- 
tions to the general condition of man; they are as tall 
trees seen from the distance, which appear a beautiful 
forest in the horizon ; but when we approach nearer, we 
find here and there, beneath and around them, the pesti- 
lential swamp, the deadly upas-tree, all manner of vile 
and worthless things. This is one of those sights in which 
"distance" may be said to "lend enchantment to the 
view," covering, with an apparently beautiful exterior, as 



10 PREFACE. 

seen from afar, the terrible corruption which lies and 
festers below. 

If we desire to see what man is, let us shut our ears to 
the harp of the poet, and visit the Mohammedan wife, the 
Indian maid, the Hindoo widow ; let us leave the romantic 
picture of mankind, and explore the lanes and alleys of 
London ; let us inspect our prisons and penal settlements, 
Bridewell and Botany Bay. After we have gone the 
round of these places, let us go home and read the first 
chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, and see if there is 
one exaggerating touch ! That chapter is a terrible but 
true picture of the lower strata of humanity. What were 
the deities in heathen times? Jupiter was a monster, 
Mercury a thief, Mars a sort of cannibal, who drank the 
blood of his victims. Such were the gods of the heathen ; 
and like gods, like people. But of man's corruption we 
have awful instances in modern times. Men baptized in 
the name of Christ, professing his religion, and under his 
pretended sanction, have set up Inquisitions for the mur- 
der of saints, for the plunder of widows, and then they 
have built cathedrals with the produce. This gospel, 
itself pure, precious, and indicative of its divine origin, 
has been perverted, and made the patron of the build- 
ings, under whose splendid towers are dungeons deep and 
dismal. So intense is man's depravity, that not only will 
he worship Jupiter, Mercury, and Mars, but he will take 
the very stones God had selected and shaped for a tem- 
ple to himself, and with these construct a temple vocal 



PREFACE. 11 

with men's praise, and in which wickedness shall be con- 
secrated. 

The gospel tells us that Jesus, who knew no sin, was 
made sin for us : in these words is the very substance of 
our sermons ; without these they would be but as sounding 
brass and tinkling cymbals. " God so loved the world, that 
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on 
him might not perish, but have everlasting life." He gave, 
not permitted, and the great Redeemer left the admiration 
of angels for the execration of the mob ; he exchanged a 
diadem of glory for a wreath of thorns ; he left the robes 
of majesty and beauty for that vile rag that Pilate cast 
upon his shoulders. Why ? It was for us ! that souls 
ruined by the curse might be redeemed by his blood, and 
restored to that great home he is gone to prepare for us. 

The Bible is not a mere directory, nor the pulpit a mere 
teacher's desk. Christianity is not a rule, but a prescrip- 
tion; not merely a direction to the living and healthy, but 
a cure for the diseased, life for the dead ; and Calvary is 
not a composite of Sinai, but that spot on which God in 
human nature died; looking to whom, and leaning upon 
whom, I am the possessor of justifying righteousness. He 
who knew no sin, was made sin for me, that I might be 
made the righteousness of God in him. 

On him were laid the iniquities of us all ; we bear his 
righteousness, and therefore by him alone do we recover 
every lost blessing. He did nothing worthy of death, 
although he died ; and we shall have done nothing wor- 



12 PREFACE. 

thy of life when we hear the glad words, "Well done, 
good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy 
Lord." When Jesus died, he had done nothing to deserve 
it ; when we are admitted to glory, it will be wholly with- 
out merit on our part. He was the spotless Lamb — we are 
the poor stray sheep, clothed in his spotless righteousness. 

There is another great truth to which the Bible bears 
testimony — the regeneration of the heart by the Holy 
Spirit. Regeneration is no more by baptism than justifi- 
cation is by works : justification is our title, sanctification 
is our qualification ; justification is our franchise, sancti- 
fication is our fitness. This justification is by Christ's 
work alone. This regeneration is the Holy Spirit's work 
alone. The precious catechism of that church to which I 
belong, and in which I have been schooled from my in- 
fancy, says justification is an act of God's grace, and 
sanctification is a work of God's Spirit; one is an act 
done once for all, completely, perfectly, and for ever — the 
other a work begun, carried on, until at length we are 
made fit for heaven, and are removed to glory. 

The Bible insists on all who have themselves felt the 
truth — not ministers alone, but all who have received the 
gospel — doing their utmost to make it known to those who 
yet remain in ignorance. Psalm lxvii. : " God be merciful 
unto us, and bless us." Why? "That thy way may 
be known upon earth, and thy saving health among all 
nations." A man who can pray thus, and then pass the 
plate at a missionary collection, contented, it may be, with 



PREFACE. 13 

giving nothing, or, what is worse, a trifle, does not know 
what the gospel is, or what Christianity really means. 
True, God can promote the gospel without our instru- 
mentality; but it concerns us to ascertain not what God 
can do, but what he does — God's omnipotence is not our 
rule of faith. We know of, and he tells us of no other 
means. The sunbeams do not write salvation on the sky ; 
angel voices do not chant it ; the temple of nature tells us 
there is a God, but it tells not our relation to him. " How 
shall they believe if they have not heard, and how shall 
they hear without a preacher?" Take the microscopic 
view of the city missionary, and inspect the lanes and 
alleys of wretchedness, sin, and demoralization at home ; 
and then with the telescope sweep the broad horizon of the 
world from mountain top to mountain top. Behold so 
many of the people of Europe lying in darkness ; look on 
Asia, once the cradle of Christianity, now the battle-field 
of the Moslem and the Jew ; see Africa, steeped in bar- 
barism, bleeding, mangled, and imploring your interposi- 
tion. And when you have gazed on these heart-rending 
spectacles — spectacles that look to us so shadowy, because 
our inner vision is so dark — hear the Son of God : first 
from the cross, and next from the throne, saying, " Go 
teach all nations." 

When the gospel has been preached as a witness to all, 
then shall Messiah come in the clouds of heaven with power 
and great glory, and the end shall come — the end of our dis- 
putes, quarrels, pride, sectarianism, selfishness, vain-glory ; 

2 



14 PREFACE. 

the end of despotism on the part of the rulers, and of insub- 
ordination in the subjects ; the end of the toils of slavery, 
and the sufferings of martyrdom ; the end of Popery, Pu- 
seyism, Paganism, and Mohammedanism, — the Missal, the 
Breviary, the Shaster, and the Koran. That great rain- 
bow of the covenant, that starts from the cross, vaults 
into the sky, and sweeps over the throne, shall complete 
its orbit, and rest again upon the ground, and Christ and 
Christianity shall be all and in all. Then shall the desert 
rejoice and blossom as the rose. Then the tree of life 
shall be where the cypress is. Then shall nations sing 
God's praise, and Sion recount God's marvels. Then 
shall history retrace with new joy God's footprints. Then 
shall the glory of Jesus sparkle in the dewdrop, and in the 
boundless sea; in the minutest atom, and in the greatest 
star ; and this earth, restrung, retuned, shall be one grand 
iEolian harp, swept by the breath of the Holy Spirit, 
pouring forth those melodies which began on Calvary, and 
shall sound through all generations. 



CONTENTS. 



LECTURE I. 

PAGE 

Daniel the Prophet Dan. i 19 

LECTURE II. 
Christian Steadfastness Dan.i. 8, 9 29 

LECTURE III. 
Living to God in Little Things Dan. i. 1-13 38 

LECTURE IV. 
True Principle is true Expediency Dan.i. 17-21 48 

LECTURE V. 
Babylon, the Golden Head Dan. ii. 37, 38 55 



LECTURE VI. 

The Medo-Persian and Gpueco-Macedonian 

Empires Dan. ii. 39 72 



LECTURE VII. 
The Mystic Stone smiting the Image Dan. ii. 34,35, 41-45. 



LECTURE VIII. 

The Kingdom op God Dan. ii. 31-44 100 

15 



16 CONTENTS. 



LECTURE IX. 

PAGE 

Early Martyrs Dan. iii. 16 117 



LECTURE X 
Pride Abased Dan. iv. 37 134 

LECTURE XL 
The Sceptre op God Ban. iv.26 151 

LECTURE XII. 
Belshazzar's Feast Dan. v 166 

LECTURE XIII. 
Weighed and Found Wanting Dan. v.24, 25 179 

LECTURE XIV. 
The Prime Minister Dan. vi. 1-10 193 

LECTURE XV. 
Daniel in the Den of Lions Dan. vi. 16 206 

LECTURE XVI. 
The Papacy Dan. vii. 16-28 220 

LECTURE XVII. 
The Coming Kingdom Dan. vii. 9, 14, 22, 26, 27 238 

LECTURE XVIII. 
The Moslem Dan. viii 252 

LECTURE XIX. 
Fasting Dan. ix. 3 269 



CONTENTS. 17 

LECTURE XX. 

PAGE 

Prayer Dan. ix. 3 283 

LECTURE XXL 
Sin, Confession, and Absolution Dan.ix. 4 298 

LECTURE XXII. 
Daniel's Litany Dan. ix. 19 312 

LECTURE XXIII. 
Messiah's Death Dan. ix. 26 327 

LECTURE XXIV. 
The Great Sacrifice Dan.ix.26 345 

LECTURE XXV. 
The Mission of the Messiah Dan.ix. 24 362 

LECTURE XXVI. 
Sacred Arithmetic Dan.ix. 24: 376 

LECTURE XXVII. 
The Messiah the Prince Dan.ix. 25 395 

LECTURE XXVHL 
Jerusalem and the Jews Dan. ix. 26,27 408 



APPENDIX 423 

INDEX 459 



PEOPHETIC STUDIES; 



LECTURES ON DANIEL THE PROPHET. 



LECTURE I. 



DANIEL THE PROPHET. 



I read the first chapter of Daniel in the course of our morning 
reading of the Scripture this day, and I then stated that I would 
turn your attention in the evening to some of those studies in 
this interesting and instructive book, which it is impossible to set 
forth in the course of a few cursory remarks upon the lessons 
which we usually read. 

I may premise that Sir Isaac Newton, Bishop Newton, the 
Duke of Manchester, Faber, Birks, and others — men of distin- 
guished erudition and thorough piety — have devoted some of the 
best of their time to the elucidation of this book, and all without 
exception have testified to its excellence, its instructiveness, its 
value as a clue to the knowledge of the things that are passing in 
the history of this dispensation, and of the principles on which 
God governs the world. Sir Isaac Newton, who explored the 
firmanent with unwearied wing, and made an apocalypse of the 
stars, felt that he was sounding a greater depth, and rising to a 
loftier height, when he sat down a patient student of this book to 
ascertain the mind, and make plain to less gifted souls the mean- 
ing of the Spirit of God. Bishop Newton, a divine of consum- 
mate piety, laborious research, and great talent, makes the following 

19 



20 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

remark on this book : — " What an amazing prophecy is that of 
Daniel ! comprehending so many events, and extending through 
so many successive ages, from the establishment of the Persian 
empire, upward of five hundred years before Christ, to the second 
general resurrection at the last day. What a proof of Divine 
Providence and of Divine Kevelation ! — for who could thus declare 
the things that shall be, with their times and their seasons, but 
He only who hath them in his power — whose dominion is an ever- 
lasting dominion, and whose kingdom endureth from generation 
to generation ?" It is a remarkable feature in the prophecies of 
Daniel, that they deal much with figures. There is in them, if I 
may use the expression, less of poetry, more of chronology. 
There is no prophecy so definite ; no prophecy that so much lays 
itself open to disproof, if it be false, or to proof if it be, as we 
believe it to be, true. - There is no prophecy which the Jew has 
felt greater difficulty in dealing with. For the modern Jew sees 
so plainly, that if Daniel be inspired, and his chronology be of 
G-od, the Messiah must have come, and that it is in vain to look 
for another, that the more earnest Jew meets the difficulty boldly 
by denying that the book is divine altogether, on grounds and 
upon premises on which he may deny that there is any divinity in 
the Old Testament at all, from the Book of Genesis to the last 
verse of the prophet Malachi. 

There is scarcely a doubt that Daniel is the author of the 
book. It does not begin with an express assertion of the fact, 
but throughout the work the most casual reader can hardly fail to 
perceive many marks by which it is plain that Daniel himself was 
the writer. For instance, in chap. vii. 28, he says, "I, Daniel;" 
viii. 2, "A vision appeared to me, Daniel." All which, and I 
might quote other similar expressions, clearly prove that Daniel 
is the writer of the book. 

But the next question that arises is this : Is there evidence 
that Daniel not only existed, but was the singularly favoured, ex- 
cellent, and beautiful character that he is here represented — not 
proclaimed to be by words, but shown to be by implication ? We 
think there is: for instance,* in Ezek. xiv. 14, "Though these 
three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver 
but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord God." 



DANIEL THE PROPHET. 21 

We have another allusion, almost the same, contained in Ezek. 
xxviii. 3 : " Thou art wiser than Daniel ; there is no secret that 
they can hide from thee." And I may state that Ezekiel was 
contemporary with Daniel. Ezekiel was the old and experienced 
saint, when Daniel was the young and growing, but highly fa- 
voured Christian ; and the beautiful allusion made by the elder to 
the wisdom and the excellence of the younger, were it not inspired, 
would lead us at least to say, How free from envy and jealousy 
was the aged Ezekiel as he waned from the stage, in reference to 
Daniel, who was about to fill his place, and was throwing him 
into the shade by his greater lustre and glory ! 

This book was received as authentic by the Jews prior to the 
time of our Saviour, and was never disputed by them. It is plain 
evidence that it existed in the Hebrew Bible — that it was trans- 
lated by the Alexandrian Jews, three hundred years before the 
birth of Christ, into Greek, and accordingly it exists in the Sep- 
tuagint translation at this day. 

I may also observe that the Book of Daniel, as also the Book 
of Ezra, is written partly in the Chaldee, a language differing 
from the Hebrew in its form and structure, but not much more 
than Italian or Spanish differs from Latin. Any one who under- 
stands Latin may easily master either of the two former languages j 
and any one who understands Hebrew has the key that unlocks 
all the cognate Oriental languages. This language begins at 
chap. ii. 4, where the Chaldeans, who spoke Arameian, or Chal- 
dee, say to the king in " Syriac," which' is the same dialect, and 
which was spoken by our Lord and by the Jews of his day, " 
king, live for ever V Josephus, the distinguished Jewish histo- 
rian, bears testimony to the authenticity of this book in the fol- 
lowing terms : "All these things did this man leave behind him, 
writing as G od had showed them to him ; so that those who read 
his prophecies, and see how they have been fulfilled, must be 
astonished at the honour conferred by God on Daniel." Antiq. x. 
11. This is the testimony of a Jew who was bitterly hostile to 
Christianity; and Josephus, in his Antiquities, shows how each 
prediction of Daniel had been fulfilled with reference to all the 
four great monarchies except the last, which was existing in his 
own time. But why this exception ? Because Josephus was a 



22 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

servant of the Roman emperor, and lie had not the courage to 
proclaim that Daniel's prophecies regarding Rome had been as 
truly fulfilled as his prophecies relating to Babylon, or. to the 
Persian or Median empire. 

In the next place, our Lord and his apostles expressly refer to 
Daniel. You are all acquainted with one allusion to him in Matt, 
xxiv. 15 : " When ye shall see the abomination of desolation, 
spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso 
readeth let him understand.") But it is perhaps no less interest- 
ing to observe the allusions scattered through the New Testament, 
which clearly point to expressions and prophecies contained in 
Daniel, though the prophet himself is not expressly named. Thus, 
for instance, in 1 Pet. i. 10, we read, " Of which salvation the 
prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of 
the grace that should come unto you." Now, on looking to Dan. 
ix. 3, and xii. 8, we find the passages to which St. Peter refers, in 
the former of which we read, " And I prayed unto the Lord my 
God, and made my confession, and said, Lord, the great and 
dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love 
him," &c. ; and in the latter we read, " I heard, but I understood 
not; then said I, my Lord, what shall be the end of these 
things ?" &c. Recollect these passages ) and while you recollect 
them, let the light struck from the language of Peter fall upon 
them, "Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and 
searched diligently, what, or what manner of time the Spirit of 
Christ which was in them" did signify, when it testified beforehand 
the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow." An- 
other very plain allusion to Daniel is contained in 2 Thess. ii. 3, 
where we have the delineation of the features of the Man of sin, 
which may well be compared with what Daniel tells us of the 
" little horn" that is to arise " doing great things ;" and you will 
see that Paul in this is but the echo of Daniel ; that Paul in short 
fills up the outline which Daniel had previously sketched. An- 
other passage to which I may refer, is 1 Cor. vi. 2, where the 
apostle Paul says, " Know ye not that the saints shall judge the 
world ?" Why did the apostle thus appeal to them ? because the 
prophet Daniel expressly declares that they will do so, when he 
tells us in chap. vii. 22, " Until the Ancient of days came, and 



DANIEL THE PROPHET. 23 

judgment was given to the saints of the Most High." What a 
wonderful harmony is there running through the whole word of 
God ! You cannot touch, as it were, a note in Daniel, but all 
the apostles of the New Testament respond to it. You may have 
noticed sometimes in a building, in a church, or a hall, that if a 
certain note or tone be given by the speaker, the whole building 
will instantly vibrate in harmony or in unison. In the same way, 
you cannot touch a truth in Daniel, but tones of harmony will 
burst from the lips of Paul and from the writings of Peter j the 
whole Bible, in grand harmony, revealing the mind, the will, and 
the glory of God. 

We find another allusion — the last I shall here refer to — in 
Heb. xi. 33, "By faith .... they stopped the mouths of lions." 
This evidently refers to the wonderful deliverance of Daniel, 
recorded in this book, when cast into the den of lions by order 
of King Darius; upon which we shall comment on a future 
Sabbath evening. " Quenched the violence of fire." To what 
can this relate but to the escape of the three youths, Shadrach, 
Meshach, and Abednego, who were thrown into the fiery furnace 
by Nebuchadnezzar, and had not even their garments singed by 
the flames ? 

These allusions, scattered through the whole New Testament, 
show us that our Lord himself, Peter, Paul, and, I might say, all 
the apostles, assumed the Book of Daniel to be an inspired reve- 
lation of the mind and will of the Holy Spirit of God. 

I have thus, then, I think, shown you enough from the re- 
mainder of the Bible to prove that this book is of the Bible. 
Some Christians among you, who long perhaps for better things, 
and sweeter things, and higher things, will be ready to say, 
" Why prove to us this of which we are already convinced V* 
So you are ; but there are many young men in every congregation 
who are placed among nests of infidels, and who will be taunted, 
and jeered, and scoffed at, for assuming or asserting the truth, 
that the visions and the predictions of Daniel are inspired : I ask, 
then, Is it not useful, — is it not demanded by the exigencies of 
the age, — is it not scriptural, to endeavour to enable every man 
to give a reason for the faith that is in him ? I know you may 
be convinced in your hearts — and nothing is so convincing that 



24 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

the Bible is true as the constant waiting upon a minister who 
makes known the precious gospel : but you need, not only what 
will convince your own hearts that the Bible is from God, but 
you need that which will enable you to convince others also. It 
is most important to have money in your bank; but you will lose 
many an advantage by the want of a little change in your 
pocket. It is most important to have deep convictions in your 
soul ; but it is not less valuable, in this strange world, and amid 
its strange mixture of society, to have a little ready argument 
which you can employ, and therewith answer a fool according to 
his folly. 

Let me notice also another line of thought, which tends to 
convince us that Daniel wrote at the time that is here assumed, 
and was a living participator in the events which he records. For 
instance, it is stated in this very chapter, that the youths were 
fed from the royal table. This is received by the ordinary reader 
as a naked fact, but it is singularly corroborative of what we have 
been saying ; for it was a custom peculiar to the Chaldeans and 
the Persians, and common to no people besides ; and the quiet 
way in which it is here alluded to as a common and a well-known 
fact, is presumptive evidence that the record was made by an 
individual who himself lived at the period and among the nation 
with whom such a custom prevailed. 

The change of the names of his companions from Hebrew into 
Chaldee, is not merely a fact that accidentally occurred in this 
particular case, but was in accordance with a custom universally 
prevalent among the Chaldees. We have an allusion to some- 
thing of the same kind in 2 Kings xxiv. 17, where it is said that 
the king of Babylon changed the name of Eliakim into Jehoia- 
kim. This, again, shows that what is recorded in this book is in 
harmony with the age and the country in which it purports to 
have been penned. 

The method of reckoning years is evidently Babylonish. Thus, 
in chap. ii. he says, " In the second year of King Nebuchad- 
nezzar;" whence it is plain that the writer of it wrote then, and 
in that kingdom. You will find at once, from the way in which 
any person writes or speaks of longitude, in what country he has 
lived; because each country reckons longitude from its own 



DANIEL THE PROPHET. 25 

meridian. Our meridian is a line supposed to pass through 
Greenwich, and therefore an English writer would reckon longi- 
tude from this point ; while a Frenchman would speak of longi- 
tude as calculated from the meridian of Paris ) and a foreigner 
of some other country would reckon it from another and a dif- 
ferent first meridian. Thus, as the mode of reckoning longitude 
would show the country to which the writer belonged, so the 
allusion here contained to the mode of reckoning time, shows 
that the narrative comes from the pen of one who was well 
acquainted with the habits and customs of the people concerning 
whom he wrote. 

Another proof of this fact may be found in chap. ii. 5, where 
the king commands the houses of the wise men to be " made a 
dunghill." It would be difficult to understand this of houses 
built of stone or of our brick ) but we must remember that the 
houses of the Chaldeans were made of bricks of clay hardened 
in the sun, which might easily be dissolved by violent rains, and 
which would speedily, by the continued action of the rain and 
moisture, be reduced to a pulp, or soft mass. 

We have further evidence of Daniel's veracity and authenticity, 
in the modes in which capital punishment is recorded to have 
been inflicted. Casting into a heated furnace was a cruelty 
practised only by the Chaldeans ; while casting into a den of wild 
beasts was a punishment peculiar to the Medes and Persians. 
You will therefore observe, that when Daniel is speaking of the 
infliction of capital punishment under the Chaldean dynasty, he 
mentions the former method, namely, casting into a furnace ; and 
when speaking of its infliction under the Medo-Persian dynasty, 
he, without saying a word about the change, relates that it was 
to have been performed after their national manner, by casting 
into a den of lions : thus showing how perfectly he was acquainted 
with the manners and the customs of the age. 

Again, we read, that at the great festival of Belshazzar, females 
were present at the feast. We have the authority of Xenophon, 
the historian of Cyrus, for saying that it was a custom peculiar 
to Babylon, and unknown among any subsequent nations : here 
also we see how accurately and minutely all the prophet states 

3 



26 PEOPBETIC STUDIES. 

accords with the actual peculiarities of the age and country in 
which he professes to write. 

The historian Xenophon, to whom I have already referred, 
further corroborates the prophet in his statement concerning 
Belshazzar, for he tells us that "the last king of Babylon was 
cruel, cowardly, and voluptuous, who despised the Deity, and 
spent his time in riot and debauchery;" which is precisely the 
character given by Daniel to Belshazzar. 

It is Xenophon's description of Cyaxares, who may plainly be 
proved to have been the same with Darius, that he was weak, 
cruel, and pliable, yet furious in his anger and tyrannical in his 
exercise of power. Compare with this the character of Darius as 
delineated by the author of this book — a king who allowed his 
nobles to make laws for him which were unalterable, and after- 
ward repented and endeavoured to retract them ; who casts Daniel 
into the den of lions for non-compliance with his orders, and then 
spends the whole night in lamentation and remorse at the conse- 
quence of his cruel severity — and you have here another sketch 
from the very same original. It is thus that you catch, sounding 
along the lapse of centuries, echoes of the grand original. It is 
thus that the more you become acquainted with all that man's 
learning can teach us, the more you will be convinced that what 
prophets and apostles wrote they wrote truly, and by the inspira- 
tion of the Holy Spirit of Grod. 

I have thus alluded to these little points, but points not 
insignificant, especially in these days when men are so anxious to 
find matter of reproach and accusation against the Word of God. 
But, in speaking to a Christian audience of the presumptive evi- 
dence that Daniel wrote this book, let me beg you to notice some 
of its grand distinctive features. Throughout the whole of this 
book the great object of it seems to be to depress all that is 
human, to let loose and unfold the glory of all that is divine. I 
always regard it as the evidence of a good sermon, that it tends 
to place the creature in the dust, and to exalt Grod upon his 
throne ; and I lay it down as evidence that a book is in keeping 
with the grand and pervading tone of the whole gospel, that it 
humbles man, and exalts the Creator and the Redeemer of man. 
Bead the whole of Daniel with this idea before you, and you will 



DANIEL THE PROPHET. 27 

see at once that it represents kingdoms and their nionarchs, their 
statesmen, their councils, their armies, their great men, their 
magnificence and their glory, as the dust only in the balance j it 
represents God as alone great — as casting down one and setting 
up another — as the monarch of an everlasting kingdom — as 
"the Ancient of Days" — as "the Living God" — the Giver of 
wisdom — the Kuler of the present, the Kevealer of the future. 
Throughout the book you have these two grand ideas developed : 
— man, how poor ! how frail ! how short-lived ! how guilty ! 
God, how wise ! how omnipotent ! how sovereign ! how good ! 
how glorious ! 

Again, not the least triumphant evidence of the inspiration of 
the Book of Daniel, is its plain and obvious fulfilment. Part of 
it is fulfilled prophecy; part of it, by its own statements, and 
from its own internal allusions, is plainly unfulfilled prophecy. 
The portion of it which Daniel stated would be fulfilled within a 
given period, has been completely fulfilled, to the very letter ; and 
that which remains to be fulfilled, we have the clearest evidence, 
from the past and the present, will be fulfilled with equal certainty 
and equal precision. The vision which Daniel saw by the banks 
of the Ulai and the Hicldekel, the two great rivers of the land of 
Shinar, has been partly fulfilled ; partly enlarged in the Apoca- 
lypse, is now in course of fulfilment, and by-and-by will be 
completely and perfectly accomplished. 

Porphyry, the earliest and the highly celebrated skeptic, from 
whom and Julian the succession of skeptics traces itself, saw so 
plainly the fulfilment of part of the prophecies of Daniel, that 
he declared the book to have been composed by one who lived in 
the days of Antiochus Epiphanes. He saw so plainly that what 
Daniel predicted had been fulfilled to the very letter, that he 
denied it was written nearly 600 years before Christ, and main- 
tained that it was written within 200 years of that event. But 
the answer to this is to be found in the fact, that the Greek 
translation from the Hebrew, called the Septuagint, was made and 
scattered throughout the world 100 years before Antiochus 
Epiphanes was born, and therefore that the objection of Porphyry 
is alike untenable, unhistorical, and absurd. 

It has also been objected to this book, that there are in it so 



28 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

many miracles and special manifestations of God that they seem 
unnecessary, and, as it were, supererogatory, and that it is not 
consistent with what we otherwise know of God, that he should 
thus so frequently and upon so many occasions miraculously 
manifest himself. But we must consider that at this period the 
Jews were in captivity — their temple was destroyed — their sacred 
rites, their sacrifices, and their ceremonies had ceased — their priests 
and their Levites were gone. Now, would it not seem perfectly 
natural, when all the outward signs of their religion were thus 
removed, that God should manifest more of himself to them, in 
order to keep up the light of religion in the absence of its out- 
ward and visible ordinances ? Does it not seem but natural that 
when the outer glory was shaded, the inner glory should be made 
to shine the more brilliantly ? Does it not seem but reasonable 
that when, in the land of their captivity, they lacked those sacred 
symbols by which they were wont to approach God, He who is 
not confined to temples made with hands should visit them in the 
time of their distress, and cheer them by special and glorious 
manifestations of himself? This has been the way of God in 
every age; and therefore the absence, not the presence, of such 
divine manifestations, would be a presumption against the claims 
of this book. There is no doubt of its inspiration. Let us 
therefore study it; and in these studies we shall gather, not only 
glimpses of the blessed future, but directions for our guidance 
along the troubled present. 



29 



LECTURE II. 

CHRISTIAN STEADFASTNESS. 

"But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the 
portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank : therefore he 
requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. Now 
G-od had brought Daniel into favour and tender love with the prince of the 
eunuchs." — Daniel i. 8, 9. 

Having said so much by way of preface to my exposition of 
this book, let me endeavour briefly to look at the particular verse 
I have selected for remark, which is really a very important one. 
" Then Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile 
himself with the portion of the king's meat/ 7 Daniel, as far as 
we can gather, was very young when he was carried away a 
captive into Babylon. He is called " a child," and we speak of 
the three children ; but, as I told you on a former occasion, the 
word rendered " child," means " a stripling," " a young man ;" 
the presumption therefore is that Daniel at this time was about 
fifteen or sixteen years of age ; and at the end of three years, 
when after living on pulse and water he appeared much fairer and 
fatter in flesh than those of his countrymen who consented to 
become partakers of the royal bounty, he was probably about 
twenty years of age. But it may be asked, what was it that 
made Daniel so firmly refuse to eat of the king's meat or drink 
of the king's wine, when there was so great a temptation to do 
so ? It could not be that he thought it sinful to drink wine, or 
improper to dine with the king of the country. I have no doubt 
he knew just as well as others that wine was more agreeable to 
his taste than water, and that to dine at the royal table would be 
a great honour ; but the reason of his refusal was evidently this : 
the king of Babylon, like all heathens, was in the habit of what 
we would call " asking a blessing" before his meals, or, as it is 



30 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

more popularly termed, " saying grace ;" in doing which he took 
a portion of his food and dedicated it to the god whom he 
worshipped, and also a portion of the wine he was about to drink, 
and poured out a libation to his idol before tasting it himself; 
and thus, as it were, consecrated, according to his idea, the whole 
to the heathen god. Daniel now felt that he could not conscien- 
tiously partake of it, because it would have been, as I shall 
hereafter show, implicating himself with heathenism, and acting 
unfaithfully to his country, his religion, and his G-od ; and he was 
prepared to run all hazards rather than even appear to do so. 
What was it, then, that made Daniel thus resolute and firm ? It 
was this : Daniel had received an early religious education ; he 
was not brought up at a school where he learned the world and 
nothing more, or mere secular education to the exclusion of re- 
ligion, just as if that were possible. He was not educated at a 
school where he was taught what the French schoolmasters are 
now teaching — pantheism and socialism j but he was brought up 
at the home of his father, where he acquired the knowledge of 
the God of Abraham, and that savingly and with profit. Early 
education was to Daniel, under G-od, the means of his preservation. 
The deep engraving of truth upon the heart of the young is never 
altogether effaced. Those impressions of divine truth that are 
made on our hearts in youth often emerge in after years with all 
the freshness and the beauty of yesterday. Silenced they may be ; 
extinguished they rarely are : overshadowed they may be ) but 
obliterated they cannot be. I know, when I learned that 
scriptural but extremely abstruse work— perhaps more so than 
need be — "The Shorter Catechism/' I did not understand it; in 
those days education was not so well comprehended, and it was 
not thought so necessary to explain to the understanding what 
was to be stored in the memory, as it is now ) but my memory 
was stored with the truths of that precious document ; and when 
I grew up I found those truths which had been laid aside in its 
cells as propositions which I could neither understand nor make 
use of, become illuminated by the sunshine of after years, and, 
like some hidden and mysterious writing, reveal in all their beauty 
and their fulness those precious truths which I had neither seen 
nor comprehended before, and which have been so long and are 



CHRISTIAN STEADFASTNESS. 31 

now preached in the church of my fathers, and no less so, I trust, 
in every section of the evangelical church of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. The words spoken by parents to their children in the 
privacy of home, or by teachers to their pupils in the more busy 
scene of the schoolroom, are like words spoken in a whispering- 
gallery, and will be clearly heard at the distance of years, and 
along the corridors of ages that are yet to come. Teach your 
children early truths, even if they cannot comprehend them, and 
those truths, impressed upon their minds when young, will prove 
like the lode-star to the mariner upon a dark and stormy sea, 
associated with a mother's love, with a father's example, with the 
roof- tree beneath which they lived and loved, and will prove 
mighty in after life to mould the man and enable him to adorn 
and improve the age in which he is placed. The heart of a child 
is ductile; it is a soft soil, into which we may cast seed which 
shall either produce poisonous weeds, or spring up and expand 
into fruit-bearing trees. Reverence the child — that little white 
pinafore in the infant-school ought to be looked upon at least as 
reverently as the black apron of the most learned bishop or arch- 
bishop that ever lived. It has an importance that you cannot 
over-estimate ; that child may play a part that shall be terrible as 
that of a Napoleon — the scourge of nations ; or beautiful as that 
of Daniel — the faithful amid the faithless many. " Train up a 
child in the way he should go," — mark the words, not " in the 
way he would go," that is the French system of education; but 
u in the way he should go — and when he is old he will not depart 
from it. 

Let me notice another feature in the prophet. Daniel was of 
noble, if not of royal birth. He was of the' royal tribe of Judah ; 
and this shows us that while " not many mighty, not many noble 
are called," there are some even of the highest rank who have 
adorned by their practice the faith which they professed. Isaiah 
and Daniel were of the royal tribe ; David was a shepherd-boy ; 
Amos was a herdsman j Zechariah, a captive from Babylon ; 
Elisha, a ploughman ; so that we have among the Old Testament 
prophets, the prince and the peasant, the noble and the commoner, 
all equally inspired by the Spirit of G-od, and proclaiming with 
equal distinctness the truths of the everlasting gospel. I know 



32 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

that the minister of the gospel should look upon the conversion 
of a single soul as transcending and eclipsing every thing ; but 
under the present constitution of society — whether that constitu- 
tion be good or bad, it is not for me here to discuss — rank and 
wealth and power have a mighty influence, and we ought specially 
to thank God when families occupying the highest place in the 
land are found , as they are found, more and more every day, 
allying themselves to that which gives splendour to the most 
ancient coronet, and grandeur to the mightiest and most illustrious 
crown. Daniel then was of the royal tribe, and probably of the 
royal family, a man of rank and dignity, and he enlisted all his 
power and all his influence in the service of his country, his 
religion, and his G-od. 

In the third place, Daniel and his three friends were evidently 
scholars; they were men of learning and talent. Daniel was 
skilled in all the secular as well as the religious knowledge of his 
country j and when we contend for sacred education, you must 
not suppose that we mean to imply that secular and scientific 
knowledge is useless to you, or in any way to disparage the pur- 
suit of it. Only read the subsequent part of this chapter, and 
you will find that Daniel was skilled in all the learning of the 
times, and it proved of eminent advantage to him and his coun- 
trymen. For aught we know, those Babylonians, gazing upon 
the starry firmament in that splendid atmosphere, and in that- 
glorious climate upon the plains of Shinar, may have had a know- 
ledge of astronomy which might make even Newton look less 
if we only knew all that the Chaldeans knew. Daniel, however, 
was a Hebrew, and was taught in the Hebrew school — science 
associated with religion. And such knowledge proved of use 
to him, for it was a great means of his exaltation to power. At 
the present day the possession of sound secular knowledge, in 
India, for instance, is of very great importance. I need not tell 
you that among the Hindoos in India we have 100,000,000 of 
fellow-subjects; with them science is always most intimately con- 
nected with religion, so much so that it is one of the principles 
of their creed that all knowledge is equally inspired. They be- 
lieve their chemistry, their astronomy, their geology, to be as 
much inspired as any principle in their religion. If, then, you 



CHRISTIAN STEADFASTNESS. 33 

can prove to a Hindoo that any part of his science is wrong, you 
have not only made him a better philosopher, but you have taken 
out a stone from the very arch of which his whole system of be- 
lief is composed. When the Church of Scotland sent out her 
missionaries, she made the experiment ; but when they tried to 
teach the Hindoos science as well as religion, some people said, 
" What, are missionaries going out from a Christian church to 
teach astronomy 1" and certainly the objection seemed plausible 
enough : but the result has proved how complete was the popular 
misapprehension. To give an instance of the advantages arising 
from the course we adopted, I may state, that the Hindoos believe 
that the earth is not a round globe, but an extended plain ; and 
that when an eclipse takes place, it is some great animal whose 
shadow produces this effect upon the moon, and that it betokens 
some disaster : but when one of our missionaries proved to a 
Brahmin what is the true figure of our globe, and demonstrated 
to him that an eclipse would take place on a certain day, and at 
a certain hour, and would be visible at a certain place, he had 
proved to the Brahmin that what he believed to be an inspired 
dogma was a gross scientific blunder ; and by so doing he not 
only made the Brahmin a better philosopher, which was not worth 
doing, but he succeeded in shaking his faith in his whole system 
of religious belief, and thus led him to infer that if one article in 
his creed were false, might not all its articles be false together ? 
This shows us the great importance of teaching scientific know- 
ledge. Now, Daniel was acquainted with all branches of know- 
ledge, and it was of great use to him, as it ever will be in the 
hand and under the control of religion. So connected it becomes 
a Levite in the temple of God, a handmaid of the bride. It acts 
as a pioneer of the gospel till the spoils that are taken from 
Egypt shall beautify the temple of Salem, and all nature bring 
its trophies to adorn the Redeemer's triumph. 

It is evident, in the next place, that though the king of Baby- 
lon liked Daniel the scholar, he did not much like Daniel the 
Christian. He wished Daniel and his friends to be taught all the 
learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans ; and he wished him at 
the same time to be taught to serve the gods and sympathize with 
the religion of the Chaldeans. The king liked Daniel's scholar- 



34 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

ship, but not his religion. He would gladly avail himself of 
Daniel's science ; but he would have liked it separate and dis- 
tinct from Daniel's religion. So it is with the world still ; men 
admire an eloquent sermon, if there be not much gospel in it — > 
they are pleased with an argumentative discourse, if it does not 
touch some tender part of their consciences. There are many 
who would be delighted with Christianity if they could only get 
rid of that continual appeal to their conscience which runs through 
the Bible. They have the greatest respect for the decencies of 
Christianity, and would even tolerate real Christianity, provided 
it does not become too earnest — too urgent for supremacy and 
mastery in the human heart. 

But the king of Babylon not only wished to unteach Daniel 
his Christianity; but, in order to detach him still more completely 
from his Hebrew associations, he changed his name. He had 
the more reason for doing so in this case, because the names 
of each of the three children had " God" in it, and thus served 
to remind them of the religion they professed. But every name 
which the Chaldee monarch gave them was either merely civil and 
social, or contained an allusion actually idolatrous. " Daniel," 
for instance, signifies " God my Judge ;" " Hananiah," the ori- 
ginal of the Latin "John," means "Grace of Jehovah;" "Mi- 
shael," "Asked of God;" "Azariah," "The Lord is my Keeper." 
These names were to the exiled youths, witnesses for God, and 
mementos of the faith of their fathers. The king of Babylon, 
therefore, called Daniel " Belteshazzar," which means, " The 
treasurer of the god Bel;" Hananiah he called " Shadrach," 
"The messenger of the king;" and Mishael he called "Meshach," 
a name denoting, "The devotee of the goddess Shesach;" and 
Azariah had his name changed into " Abed-nego," which signifies 
" The servant of Nego," one of the gods of Babylon. Thus 
Nebuchadnezzar heathenized their names, in hopes that he might 
thereby be the better able to heathenize their hearts. There is 
much in a name. A great poet has said — 

" What's in a name ? that which we call a rose 
By any other name would smell as sweet." 

Abstractedly and logically, he is correct; but practically we find 



CHRISTIAN STEADFASTNESS. 35 

that there is a great deal in a name. So thought the king of 
Babylon; and when he changed the names of the young Hebrew 
captives, he imagined that he had made a grand step toward 
changing their creed and their character. But in this he was 
mistaken : the alteration of names did not alter the conduct of 
those that bore them. The Hebrew youths made no resistance, 
but quietly took the names assigned them, just as Christians have 
ever taken patiently the reproaches of the world, and borne them 
joyfully; but, even in this new nomenclature, they heard the un- 
dertone or echo of those dear and holy names which their fathers 
had given them ; and they felt that though a tyrant might change 
their names, no tyrant can change a Christian's conviction or a 
Christian's heart. Neither the sheepskins nor the goatskins of 
the martyrs made them less lovely before God ; the beauty of the 
king's daughter is not a beauty that man can make or mar; her 
beauty is within, it is a moral — a hidden, and so a lasting beauty. 
• The king of Babylon, we read, yet further to identify these 
four Hebrew youths with himself and his religion, sent them food 
from the royal table. "We know that this was a mark of great 
generosity. It was, as it were, saying to these Hebrew youths, 
If you will become priests of our temple, we will give you an 
endowment from the state. I do not say here whether endow- 
ment is right or wrong. Truth can do without it, and may law- 
fully take it; but truth is not to be promoted by the sword, 
neither is error to be maintained by the treasury. This sending 
them meat from the royal table was a mark of esteem — a degree 
of preferment ; and as such it should be received with gratitude ; 
but it was refused in this case because it involved the sacrifice 
of principle. Every Jew was forbidden by the law to eat any 
but animals of certain classes which were called clean. Herein 
lay one objection to the Hebrew youths accepting the proffered 
honour of eating from the royal table. But whether our meat 
be from the table of the monarch or elsewhere, it must not lead 
us to abandon one jot of what we believe to be true, or to adopt 
the least item of what we believe to be unscriptural and untrue. 
The object of the king, as I have explained to you, was partly to 
engage their sympathies with heathenism, and partly to identify 



86 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

them more with the idol gods whom he worshipped. But another 
objection on the part of Daniel and his friends arose from the 
fact, to which I have before alluded, that it was customary with 
the Chaldeans, as with other heathen nations, always to com- 
mence their meals by the dedication of their food to the idols 
whom they adored. Speaking of this subject, the apostle tells 
us, 1 Cor. x. 27, 28, "If any of them that believe not bid you 
to a feast, and ye be disposed to go ; whatsoever is set before you, 
eat, asking no question for conscience' sake : but if any man say 
unto you, This is offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his 
sake that showed it, and for conscience' sake." This was just 
the case of the Hebrew youths; and in settling this question 
they argued thus: "Shall I," said Daniel, "ask my conscience, 
or shall I ask my appetite ? shall I cease to live as an Israelite, 
or shall I cease to live as the protege, of my royal master ? shall 
I give up the dignity reflected from the throne, or shall I give 
up the honour that cometh from God only V Had Daniel been 
one of those modern easy, accommodating Christians, who when 
they go to Rome say, " We must do as Roine does," and when 
they go to Constantinople, "We must do as Constantinople does," 
he would have acted very differently. But he felt that truth has 
no latitude ; the living religion of the living God knows no lon- 
gitude. It is to be the same in London as in Paris; it is to 
have supremacy in all countries and in all climes ; whether in 
Constantinople, or in Rome, or in England, we must be the wor- 
shippers of the living God, by Christ the living way, and through 
the teaching of the Holy Spirit, the comforter of all that believe. 
My dear friends, make the world bow to your religion j never let 
your religion bow to the world. Let the world fail, and let give 
way who will, the earnest Christian and the honest man never 
will give way. Do not try to be rude ; that is not necessary. 
Do not offensively obtrude what you believe upon others; but 
when it is demanded — when you are called upon to sacrifice your 
principles and to deny your Lord, remember that there can be 
little hesitation when the question is whether you are to obey 
God, or to obey man. Daniel so acted, and Daniel was blessed 
in doing so. 

Be ye followers of Daniel, and of all " those who through faith 



CHKISTIAN STEADFASTNESS. 37 

and patience inherited the promises." Study Daniel, and copy 
him, as far as he copied Christ. We admire this star, because it 
shines in the light of Christ the original. 

" Faithful found 
Among the faithless; faithful only he, 
Among innumerable false ; unmoved, 
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified, 
His loyalty he kept, his love and zeal. 
Nor number nor example with him wrought 
To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind, 
Though single." 



38 



LECTUKE III. 



LIVING TO GOD IN LITTLE THINGS. 

In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah came Nebuchad- 
nezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it. And the Lord gave 
Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house 
of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; 
and he brought the vessels into the treasure-house of his god. And the king 
spake unto Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring certain 
of the children of Israel, and of the king's seed, and of the princes ; chil- 
dren in whom was no blemish, but well favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, 
and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had abi- 
lity in them to stand in the king's palace, and whom they might teach the 
learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans. And the king appointed them a 
daily provision of the king's meat, and of the wine which he drank : so 
nourishing them three years, that at the end thereof they might stand before 
the king. Now among these were of the children of Judah, Daniel, Hana- 
niah, Mishael, and Azariah : unto whom the prince of the eunuchs gave 
names: for he gave unto Daniel the name of Belteshazzar; and to Hanna- 
niah, of Shadrach; and to Mishael, of Meshach; and to Azariah, of Abed- 
nego. But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself 
with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank : 
therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile 
himself. Now God had brought Daniel into favour and tender love with the 
prince of the eunuchs. And the prince of the eunuchs said unto Daniel, I 
fear my lord the king, who hath appointed your meat and your drink : for 
why should he see your faces worse liking than the children which are of 
your sort? then shall ye make me endanger my head to the king. Then 
said Daniel to Melzar, whom the prince of the eunuchs had set over Daniel, 
Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten 
days ; and let them give us pulse to eat, and water to drink. Then let our 
countenances be looked upon before thee, and the -countenance of the children 
that eat of the portion of the king's meat : and as thou seest, deal with thy 
servants." — Daniel i. 1-13. 

In my introductory discourse upon this truly interesting book, 
I have endeavoured first of all to show you that the assumption 
that the book was written at the epoch at which it is said to have 
been written, viz. about six hundred years before the birth of 



LIVING TO GOD IN LITTLE THINGS. 39 

Christ, can be proved to be fact by internal as well as collateral 
evidence. I quoted various passages from the book itself in proof 
of this fact, for most of which I am indebted to Hengstenberg, 
the celebrated German vindicator of the Book of Daniel and of 
the Pentateuch ; and I showed from several circumstances that 
the book must have been penned at the time, in the country, and 
under the circumstances in which it professes to have been 
written. 

I then referred to the circumstances in which the four captive 
Hebrew youths were placed. They had been brought up in the 
knowledge of the true God, and in the enjoyment of all the reli- 
gious privileges of Jerusalem ; and now, in the land of their cap- 
tivity, and among their heathen conquerors, the principles they 
had imbibed in their youth were put to the severest test. 

I endeavoured from these facts to draw the inference, that a 
Christian education is one of the greatest blessings you can bestow 
on those that are around you. The infant generation of to-day 
are the adult generation of to-morrow; and very much what we 
now make them, that they will be. As Christian men we must 
feel it hard and painful to see the child — the all but child — 
brought up at the police court, and sent to the treadmill, or 
banished to Botany Bay, when we recollect that it is those who 
read the intelligence who are to be blamed for leaving that child 
without the means of Christian and scriptural instruction ; and 
it may be that much of the blood of those that thus perish in 
their sins may lie at our door. At all events, no Christian con- 
gregation is warranted in being without a Christian school ; and 
the larger and the more influential the congregation, the larger 
and the better supported ought the school to be. Depend upon 
it, that the first lesson a son receives from a mother is the last 
lesson that a son recollects upon earth ; and though the earliest 
truths that we are taught at school may be silenced for a season, 
or overborne by the din and the roar of the wheels and the ma- 
chinery of mammon, yet the hour will come when that early 
lesson, as if touched by some living influence, will instantly revive 
in all its beauty and its freshness ; and, as in the case of John 
Newton, when tossed upon the tempestuous deep, conscience will 
reason of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come. So 



40 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

it was in the case of Daniel ; the lessons he had learned in his 
childhood were the lessons that guided him, comforted hini, 
strengthened him, when a captive in the midst of Babylon. 

I noticed another feature; namely, that Nebuchadnezzar the 
king, seeing these youths well instructed, evidently well educated, 
and one of them, there is reason to believe, of royal lineage, was 
anxious to make them adopt his religion. He did not try on this 
occasion the great blunder that is sometimes perpetrated, of driving 
them into his religion, or persecuting and punishing them — as if 
the punishment of the body could, in any case, promote the con- 
viction of the soul. He tried a far more artful plan. First of 
all, he changed their names ; for he knew that so long as they 
were called by their Hebrew names, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, 
and Azariah, so long there would be in their names mementos of 
early lessons and early associations. He therefore determined 
upon the expedient — and it was a most clever though in this 
case, by the grace of God, an unsuccessful one — of changing the 
names of the Hebrew youths ; hoping that, as they forgot their 
names, they would forget the creed with which they were asso- 
ciated. As I told you, every one of these three names denotes 
something in connection with God, and thereby served to remind 
them of the religion of their fathers. He therefore called Daniel, 
Belteshazzar ; Hananiah, Shadrach; Mishael, Meshach; and Aza- 
riah, Abed-nego : which were all names containing some allusion 
to his heathen idols. A Christian name is a very beautiful thing : 
and we should always prefer to give our children names that in 
themselves are eloquent with whatever things are pure and beau- 
tiful and just, or which are by their associations connected with 
the good and great who have preceded us to glory. And we can- 
not but sometimes lament, when we are called upon to baptize a 
child by some name that reminds us of the gods of Greece or 
Rome, or the idols of the heathen, and not of those sainted names 
that have passed before us into immortality. 

After this plan had been adopted by Nebuchadnezzar he fol- 
lowed it up by another. He thought that these Hebrew youths, 
having had their names thus changed, might, by Chaldean food, 
be made much more easily the subjects of Chaldean instruction. 
He, therefore, did not allow them to be fed on the ordinary food 



LIVING TO GOD IN LITTLE THINGS. 41 

of captives, but he ordered that they should receive their meat 
from the king's table. Daniel immediately refused it — some 
would say, on very paltry grounds. Those very liberal Chris- 
tians, but whom I venture to call very latitudinarian Christians ; 
for it is very possible to be liberal and yet not to be latitudina- 
rian ; liberal all Christianity bids us be — latitudinarian not one 
verse of it authorizes us to be ; we cannot be too liberal in con- 
ceding to a brother the largest husk of prejudice ; we cannot be 
too strict in refusing to compromise the least living seed of vital 
and essential truth ; — now, some of these " liberal," or rather, as 
I said, latitudinarian Christians, would have said that when Daniel 
refused the king's meat, and preferred pulse and water, he was a 
very scrupulous Jew ; others would have said, perhaps he thought 
that drinking wine was in itself sinful, and that water alone was 
lawful ; others would say, he need not have been so very strict in 
Babylon as he was in Jerusalem ; that in Rome men should do as 
Rome does ; in Constantinople men should do as Constantinople 
does ; and in London men should do as London does. How can 
any one seriously say so ? Is duty a thing of latitude and longi- 
tude ? Does that which is a duty here become the reverse there ? 
If I read my Bible right — if I interpret the first lessons of con- 
science right, duty is like its God, the same everywhere; and 
what is a duty, and loyalty, and allegiance to Him, is the same 
whether amid polar snows or in the torrid zone ; in Rome, where 
the superstitious hierarch reigns ; or in Constantinople, where the 
fallen star and the crescent are. Daniel felt it so, and he there- 
fore refused the royal bounty. But you ask, was there a valid 
ground for refusing it ? I answer there was ; and I thus explain 
the reason of it. Among the heathens, before commencing a 
meal, the meat was first offered or dedicated to the Lares or house- 
hold gods, and a portion of the wine was poured out as a libation 
to the idols wliom they adored. "What we call " saying grace," 
or, to use a much more Christian phrase, " asking a blessing,' 7 
was among them performed by offering a portion of the meat and a 
portion of the wine to the presiding divinities of their houses. The 
apostle Paul, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, reasons thus upon 
the subject: "It is nothing to you, of course, that he has done so; 
but if he means to entrap you into an expression of sympathy with 

4* 



42 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

his idolatry, by eating of his food thus dedicated to an idol, then 
you must abstain from it." Daniel acted on this principle ; and he 
preferred the pulse and water, the least nutritious of the elements of 
nature, to the daintier cheer of the royal table ; because he would 
rather have had, what I trust you would rather have, the smiles 
of your God from heaven, than the patronage of the mightiest 
king that ever swayed a sceptre upon the earth. 

Time would not permit me, in my last lecture, to draw all the 
practical lessons from this fact which I had intended to do. I 
will, therefore, turn your attention to them now. Daniel's refusal 
seemed, at first sight, somewhat uncalled for. Refusing the meat 
from the royal table, and the wine from the royal cellar, seemed, 
I say, frivolous to the worldling, but it involved a great principle. 
His refusal seemed small to the eye, but it was the turning point 
of his Christianity. To have acted otherwise would have been no 
concession of a prejudice — it would have been no mere giving way 
in matters of detail; it would have been surrender of principle — 
compromise of truth — apostasy from his religion ; and Daniel felt 
that it was a light thing to be judged of man, for He that judged 
him was God. And have not we something to learn from Daniel's 
conduct ? He was placed under a darker dispensation, when the 
belief of Christ spoke good things, but spoke them faintly ; while 
we are placed in a brighter dispensation, where, as I showed you 
in a morning discourse, the belief of Christ speaks better things, 
and speaks them eloquently and distinctly. Are there not some 
among us, against whom these Hebrew captives will rise up in 
judgment in this matter ? Are there any here who would sacri- 
fice their conscience, with its awful requirements, to their tempo- 
rary and worldly convenience ? who would stifle the convictions 
that are deepest in order to gain some temporary and evanescent 
advantage — who would give up an article in their creed rather 
than miss a good place, or lose a valuable living ? Are there any 
here who would risk the condemnation of their God rather than 
incur the sneer of man, or lose the king's meat when that meat is 
the most rich, or the king's wine when it is red in the cup ? If 
such there be, Daniel even now rises from his grave, and will rise 
at the resurrection morn and bear witness against them, for seek- 
ing their temporal advantage — though in so doing I shall show 



LIVING TO GOD IN LITTLE THINGS. 43 

that they have missed it — and forgetting and neglecting their eter- 
nal and inexhaustible obligations to God. If this be so, listen to 
this the first great lesson that I draw from the passage before us. 
The Lord said, " He that is faithful in a little is faithful also 
in much ) and he that is unjust in a little is unjust also in 
much." There is more force, more point, more application to our- 
selves in this sentence, than we are sometimes disposed to admit. 
Many Christians are like Naaman the Syrian, ever trying to do 
some great thing, and thinking that if a great crisis were to come, 
they would have their nerves prepared to meet it, and in God's 
strength they would be able to triumph. Many Christians tell 
us that they cannot find a place large enough for the discharge of 
their duties ; to them religion becomes a sort of romance ; and in- 
stead of quietly laying one brick upon the earth, they are con- 
stantly building a thousand castles in the air — instead of discharg- 
ing the plain every-day duty, and showing their faithfulness and 
love in it, they pass life in looking for some grand occasion for the 
display of their Christian virtues — thinking that though they can- 
not live as Christians should live, if the crisis were to come they 
would die as martyrs have died. You are mistaken. If you can- 
not be faithful in the least, you cannot be faithful in much. I 
believe it to be a very important thought, that there are no little 
things in morals, though there may be little things in matter. 
Have not you yourselves found that many a great crisis which has 
absorbed your whole soul for years, has left yet upon it no deep 
impression that survives at the present moment ? And I appeal 
to some other man's experience ; has not sometimes a random con- 
versation in a railway carriage — an accidental interview with a 
friend in the place of business — the turning of your foot into a 
place of worship that was near, because it rained, instead of going 
to your usual place of worship at a greater distance — have not lit- 
tle things such as these, and such as we call so, become the turn- 
ing points in your character ; so that, humanly speaking, if some 
such apparently small event had not taken place, the whole after 
conduct of your life would have been changed ? Thus we learn that 
events which seem to us frivolous and unimportant, may become 
the Therniopylse of a Christian's conflict, the Marathon of a nation's 
being; the turning point of everlasting life or everlasting death. 



44 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

Let me notice in the next place, in order to vindicate and en- 
force faithfulness in what are called little things — for it was Da- 
niel's faithfulness in things such as these, which gave tone and 
complexion to his whole after life — that in the providence and the 
creation of God, you will find that God as Creator, or God as 
Provider, expends as much care, wisdom, time, if I may use the 
expression, certainly attention, on the very least things as he does 
on the very greatest. If you examine the petal of a rose you 
will find it as exquisitely and as delicately tinted and touched by 
the pencil of God as the largest star that shines and stands like a 
sentinel before the throne of God. If you take the mightiest orb 
that the telescope brings within your horizon, you will find that 
it is not finished with greater care than the smallest molecule of 
matter that the microscope reveals to your view. In all God's 
works you will see infinite detail, exquisite elaboration of the 
minutest and the most microscopic things, patient labour, process, 
attention; and if we would be like G-od, let us take care to be 
faithful in the very least duty as well as in the largest sacrifice 
that he requires of us. 

In the next place, if you will notice that sublime life — which 
is sublimer than providence, more stupendous than creation — 
the life of the Son of God upon earth, you will notice what has 
often been overlooked, -that, according to the same great analogy, 
Jesus paid attention to little things in his life, as great, as marked, 
as striking, as to the greatest acts that he did. And I have felt it 
in my own mind, as well as noticed it in others, that when we 
quote the character of Jesus, and are trying to show how grand 
it was, we point to him stretching out his hand, laying it upon the 
crested waves of the unruly ocean, and making it lie down and be 
still ; we quote him turning water into wine, opening the closed 
eye, and unstopping the deaf ear. And we say how great was He ! 
But I doubt whether these are the highest proofs of the greatness 
of the Son of God. You find, at all events, that while he could thus 
display his mighty power in these great things, he yet descended 
to what you would call very minute things. I watch him, and I 
find him one moment speaking in beautiful but truth-breathing 
tones to Martha, exhorting her not to be over anxious about the 
affairs of her household. I find him again sitting down weary 



LIVING TO GOD IN LITTLE THINGS. 45 

and wayworn at the well of Samaria, and expending upon one 
poor woman more of eloquent, and earnest, and impressive reason- 
ing than he ever expended upon kings, and counsellors, and 
high-priests. 

And just after he had wrought the great miracle of turning the 
few loaves and fishes into food for five thousand, you find him 
closing that stupendous evidence of stupendous power, by bidding 
his disciples gather up the crumbs that remained in order that 
nothing might be lost. Or, to notice a yet more striking instance, 
when he hung upon the cross in that dire and bitter agony which 
is so graphically recorded by the Evangelists, and which Chris- 
tians, Sabbath after Sabbath, commemorate, with the whole 
burden of a world's transgressions resting upon him, do you 
recollect that touching and affecting fact, that while one moment 
he could cry, in anguish which no language can depict, " Eli, Eli, 
lama sabachthani V " My God, my Grod, why hast thou forsaken 
me ?" the next moment he descends to say to John, " Behold thy 
mother !" committing, even in this hour of overwhelming sorrow, 
a weeping mother to the care of a faithful friend. And when, 
having completed the stupendous work in which he was engaged, 
he rose triumphant from the grave — when the great stone was 
rolled away at his bidding, and all the obstructions of the tomb 
were rent asunder at his word, do you remember, what we might 
consider a very petty and trivial incident, but really not so, that 
we are told by the Evangelist that the napkin that had been 
wrapped around the Saviour's head was found, not left behind in 
a state of confusion, but rolled up and laid aside by itself ? and 
how he said to the women whose affection led them first to the 
sepulchre, " Go and tell my disciples and Peter?" What 
attention to little things ! What care over minute things ! What 
faithfulness in that which is least as well as in that which is 
great ! — a precedent and an example that we should follow in his 
steps. 

There is often as much real religion to be shown in little things 
as in greaf things. You have in Daniel all the feeling and the 
religious principle that a martyr would require for a martyr's 
triumphs, but it is exhibited in a circumstance the most minute 
and apparently unimportant. As great love may be displayed to 



46 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

our relatives in attention to little things, as in great and laborious 
sacrifices. Peter could unsheath his sword, and cut off the ear 
of Malchus to defend his Master; hut Peter could not help 
denying his Lord when accused by the servants of being a friend 
of Jesus. We have learned little Christianity if we have not 
learned this, that it needs as much grace to live divinely as it 
does to die divinely. It is possible to give our bodies to be 
burned, and to distribute all our goods to feed the poor, and yet 
not to have that love which endureth all things, beareth all things, 
hopeth all things, and is the highest evidence of our connection 
with and our belonging to God. Then, my dear friends, feeling 
this — seeing that there is weight in what I have now said, be- 
cause there is truth in it, let us seek to be thus faithful in that 
which is least. Let us ever remember that to be singular for the 
mere sake of singularity is absurd ; but to be singular when the 
call of duty and faithfulness to God demands it, is the evidence 
of a true Christian. Let us purpose, like Daniel, not to defile 
ourselves with any meat, even though it be the king's. It may 
be unfashionable, but it is Christian. It may look occasionally 
singular, but it is the singularity of principle, not the singularity 
of caprice. It may cost us much self-denial, but it is a part of 
our welfare. It may be construed as scrupulosity or fastidious- 
ness, but it is really an element of Christian character. And if 
we desire to be steadfast and to conquer in the minute as well as 
in the mighty, in the least as well as in the greatest, let us re- 
collect that we have the same source of strength and of victory 
that Daniel had, " Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, 
saith the Lord of hosts j" only we must not, as some persons do, 
confound two things that differ completely. They think they 
cannot be faithful without being very rude; they fancy they 
cannot be true to God without being very discourteous, and per- 
haps very vulgar in their expressions toward man. Now, whether 
vulgarity and rudeness be sins or virtues, it is needless to discuss; 
at all events they are not certainly evidence that there is faith- 
fulness along with them. Notice Daniel's example. He combines 
all the courtesy of the most finished courtier, with all the stead- 
fastness of the most devoted Christian. When he was told that 
his name should be changed he bore it with all meekness ; the 



LIVING TO GOD IN LITTLE THINGS. 47 

ancient followers of the cross were clothed with sheepskins and 
goatskins ; they wandered in deserts and caves of the earth, being 
destitute, afflicted, tormented ) they were branded with every 
ignominy, and regarded by all men as the very off-scouring of the 
earth. Yet they took it all patiently — so did Daniel bear his 
cross j but when it came to a point of principle, when he was 
ordered to eat the king's meat, and thereby deny his religion, we 
do not find him fly into a furious state of excitement, or use the 
language of bravado ; there was no outbreak of temper, no 
boasting, no insolence or defiance. He did not say, " Tell the 
king I will not do so." That would have been violence, rude- 
ness, insolence — the least effective and the least expedient. He 
had confidence in his religious principles ; he trusted in the good- 
ness of his cause ) he relied upon the Grod whom he served ; and 
the reply which he made to Melzar, whom the prince of the 
eunuchs had set over him and his fellows, was this, " Prove thy 
servants, I beseech thee," — the language of perfect respect, — 
" ten days ; and let them give us pulse to eat, and water to drink. 
Then let our countenances be looked upon before thee, and the 
countenance of the children that eat of the portion of the king's 
meat : and as thou seest, deal with thy servants." What gentle- 
ness and courtesy ! as well as what a sanctified heart ! the highest 
Christianity is always associated with the highest courtesy. My 
conviction is that none but a finished Christian can be a finished 
gentleman ) for if there be genuine Christianity in the heart, 
the manners will be but the outward evidences of the inward 
feelings of the heart — gentle, beautiful, courteous, bearing all 
things, hoping all things, enduring all things. We find that 
Melzar was so charmed and delighted to see so much self-denial 
united to so great courtesy and gentleness that he immediately 
permitted the experiment to be made, and the result is stated in 
verse 15, that at the end of ten days their countenances were 
found fairer and fatter in flesh than those of the children that did 

eat of the king's meat. 
i 



48 



LECTURE IV. 



TRUE PRINCIPLE IS TRUE EXPEDIENCY. 

" As for these four children, God gave them knowledge and skill in all 
learning and wisdom : and Daniel had understanding in all visions and 
dreams. Now at the end of the days that the king had said he should bring 
them in, then the prince of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchad- 
nezzar. Aud the king communed with them : and among them all was 
found none like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah: therefore stood they 
before the king. And in all matters of wisdom and understanding that the king 
inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and as- 
trologers that were in all his realm. And Daniel continued even unto the first 
year of king Cyrus." — Daniel i. 17-21. 

The next lesson that we have to draw from the closing verses 
of the chapter is a very important one — it is the result of Daniel's 
experiment. Was Daniel a loser by his firm adherence to principle ? 
Not at all; it was all the very reverse. We find that Daniel's 
faithfulness to conscience, his allegiance to his God, his courteous 
but firm refusal to do that which was sinful, was even in this world 
blessed to him, and even in temporal affairs turned to his advan- 
tage. Now I wish young men especially to look at this; because 
the lesson that I am drawing from it is a much needed one. The 
four children were found at the end of ten days to have been so 
blessed of God, that not only were they, as we have seen, fairer and 
fatter in flesh than any of the children — i. e. the children of Israel 
— who gave up their consciences and ate of the king's meat ; but the 
result was, in the end, that in all matters of knowledge and skill, 
they were many times wiser than all the magicians and astrologers 
that were in all the realm. God honoured his servants. The 
result of this faithfulness to God was promotion in the palace and 
the favour of the king. 

The lesson, therefore, that I draw from the whole subject is in 
these words : " Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteous- 



TRUE PRINCIPLE IS TRUE EXPEDIENCY. 49 

ness, and all other things will be added unto you." In other 
words, make religion the great thing, and all the rest that you 
want will fall into its place. You have heard of, and many of 
you have probably read Josephus, the Jewish historian. He 
was the servant of the Roman emperors, Titus and Vespasian, 
and of course he was anxious, as you might expect in a man 
not troubled with very much conscience or very much religion, to 
please and propitiate his masters as much as possible. He thus 
comments upon the conduct of Daniel and his fellows in prefer- 
ring pulse and water to wine and meat from the royal table. Of 
course, he could not say that it was Daniel's refusal to patronize 
or to connive at the idolatry of the heathen that made him 
so accepted and beloved, for this would have been to offend his 
Roman masters, who were worshippers of similar idols; but he 
gives this explanation : — "By the diet they took they had their 
minds in some measure more pure and less burdened, and so fit 
for learning, and had their bodies in better condition for hard 
labour; for they neither had the former oppressed with variety of 
meats, nor the latter effeminate on the same account; so they rea- 
dily amassed all the learning of the Hebrews and the Chaldeans." 
Such is the account of the matter given by this Jewish historian. 
Josephus was very much like some of our modern philosophers, 
who are always glad when they can explain a phenomenon with- 
out G-od. If you ask them any thing about the firmanent above 
or the earth below; if you ask them for a solution of the plague, 
the pestilence, or the recent epidemic ; if you ask them for an ex- 
planation of any one fact or phenomenon in science, in history, in 
creation, in Providence ; they have some hundreds of what they 
call laws, and they say, " Such is the law of nature :" and no doubt 
there are laws; and as long as the word is used to denote harmony 
and consistency of movement, regularity and order, so long it is 
good; but the moment you are satisfied with a reference to the 
law as an explanation of the phenomenon, that moment you are 
working with Josephus and with the heathen, and attributing to 
lords many and gods many that which is the clear evidence of the 
presence of the living and the true Grod. The reason why Daniel 
prospered upon pulse and water, is not that a vegetarian diet, as 
some say, is the most wholesome, or that water is far more con- 

5 



50 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

ducive to health than wine — though. I believe that the less wine 
you drink the better, if you have no physical need for it j and I 
am sure that in perfect health there is very little need for it. But 
this was not the reason why Daniel prospered upon pulse and 
water. It was the blessing of the Lord added to the pulse and 
water, which made them far more nutritive than the king's meat 
and the king's wine, with that blessing withdrawn from them. In 
other words, he sought first God's kingdom and God's righteous- 
ness, and all other things were added to him. He found this to 
be true : " Godliness hath promise of the life that now is, as well 
as of that which is to come." 

And now I say again to you, my dear friends, as the inference 
from all this, " Seek first to do God's will, and all other things 
shall be added unto you." Do not take anxious thought about 
to-morrow, but take prayerful thought about to-day. Depend upon 
it that the vigorous discharge of to-day's duties will be the best 
preparation for to-morrow's trials. Let alone to-morrow's cares 
till the sun of to-morrow looks upon them and awakens them. 
" Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." And I know no- 
thing more absurd in itself, and }^et nothing more common, 
than for men to scrape all to-morrow's trials that may be or that 
may not be, and add them to the duties and the trials of to- 
day, forgetting that God gives us strength for each day, and 
not strength for that day and the next likewise ; that God 
gives us bread for to-day, and yet not bread for to-day and 
to-morrow. You do God's will and stand by your post, and 
discharge your duties this day, and to-morrow will take care 
of itself. " Seek first God's glory and God's will, and all 
other things will be added unto you." 

And therefore I would say, enlarging and expanding this 
sentiment, seek first to know God before other things. By all 
means study science ; but not science, not philosophy, not li- 
terature, not music, not painting first: but study Christianity 
first. Take the knowledge of God into the school, into the 
university, into the encyclopaedia, as first and last. Hear, in- 
deed, the wisdom of Solomon, but hear first the wisdom of 
one greater than Solomon. Do not go through Solomon to Christ, 
but go through Christ to Solomon. Seek first to know Him 



TEUE PRINCIPLE IS TRUE EXPEDIENCY. 51 

whom to know is eternal life ; then study science, and literature, 
and painting, and music, and all that this world's learning can 
teach. We do not want to discourage secular knowledge, but to 
plant in its bosom that which will adorn, exalt, and sanctify both 
the study and the student, and make the one an ornament and the 
other an heir of the kingdom of heaven. 

In the next place let me say, study first of all the safety of the 
soul. The first thought you have to think of, the first duty you 
have to discharge, is the duty that you owe to the soul. Who 
can calculate this problem, "What shall it profit a man if he gain 
the whole world and lose his own soul ?" Our first effort should 
be to obtain an answer to this question, What shall I do to be 
saved ? My dear friends, no man ever yet set out to gain the 
world by the sacrifice of his soul, and succeeded in his object. 
The words are, " if you gain the world ;" it does not imply that 
if you set out to gain the world at such a cost, you are sure even- 
tually to gain it. Twenty men set out, all determined to be rich, 
and nineteen are strewed like wrecks on the highway. And have 
you not found, on the other hand, that the man who set out de- 
termined to provide for the safety of his soul in the first instance, 
has had other things added to him unexpectedly, and in far greater 
abundance than he could have anticipated? 

And if this be true, carry out the principle in your families. 
I speak to fathers and mothers : seek first to make your children 
Christians, next, and only next, to be gentlemen. Send your chil- 
dren rather, I beseech you, to a school where they will be taught 
to pray fervently, than to a school where they will be taught 
to dance after the most approved mode and according to the 
most elegant movements. Be anxious rather to make your chil- 
dren Christians than to make them Churchmen, or Dissenters, or 
Episcopalians, or Presbyterians. Depend upon it that the old 
Adam will learn soon enough to fis;ht about free church and in- 
dependency, and episcopacy, and presbytery, and about all the 
" isms'' to be found in the catalogue of man ; but the last thing 
and the most difficult thing that they will learn is to care about 
their souls, or to think about God. Teach your children that pulse 
and plain water, with the blessing of Grocl, is sweeter and better 



52 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

and more nutritive than the king's meat and the king's wine 
without it. 

In the next place I would say, in fixing to attend on a ministry, 
carry out the same principle; seek first the kingdom of God and 
his righteousness, and all other things will be added unto you. 
Do not attach the greatest importance to the section of the 
church ; hut you who are an Independent, prefer Christian and 
scriptural doctrine with episcopacy, rather than unscriptural doc- 
trine with independency; and you who are an Episcopalian, prefer 
to hear the gospel from the minister of an Independent denomina- 
tion rather than to hear Puseyism and Popery from a bishop of 
your own church. And so with respect to the Scotch Church — I pre- 
fer it, and think it the best in existence; and why should I not ? 
I was baptized in it, I have studied it, I know it, I love it; 
but if there were deadly error preached in the parish church 
I was born by, and if the gospel was preached by a poor 
Methodist local preacher in a neighbouring barn, I would go 
and hear the poor Methodist preacher, and leave the parish 
minister with empty pews. When the question is, shall it be 
bread or poison? by all means give me good bread in a silver 
basket; but rather give me good bread on a wooden trencher 
than poison in a golden basket. Take other things in their 
place, other things think about, other things prefer, but this you 
must have; and common sense, which is nearest to the highest 
Christianity, will insist upon mking this the first and the para- 
mount consideration. 

In the next place, carry out this principle in fixing upon a house 
to dwell in. In this world we are constantly changing. Let me 
tell those who have mansions and those who have cottages — those 
who have palaces and those who have cellars, that they are all 
equally precarious in their tenure, for there are two ways to get 
rid of them : either the inhabitant will be removed from the house, 
or the house will be removed from the inhabitant. There are two 
ways of separating the one from the other ; we are but dwellers in 
tents ; strangers and pilgrims, as all our fathers were; and therefore, 
if you are changing your house, do .not, like Lot, prefer the well- 
watered plain, just within range of the din and the noise of Sodom, 
basking in its sunshine, listening to its noise, as to the sweetest 



TRUE PRINCIPLE IS TRUE EXPEDIENCY. 53 

and best music ; but rather prefer a much smaller house, with a 
less beautiful lawn, and less spacious grounds, and far fewer con- 
veniences, that basks in the sunshine of the countenance of God, 
and that gives you the opportunity of hearing the gospel of the 
blessed Jesus. Prefer a house near to a pious and evangelical 
minister, rather than a house near to the hall of a noble or the 
palace of a king. Be content with bread — living bread — where 
you can know God, rather than the king's meat and royal wine 
without that knowledge. 

And so, my dear friends, I would urge you to carry out the 
same principle in entering upon any business. Do not select a bu- 
siness inconsistent with the exercise of your Christian duties, or in 
which you must sacrifice your Christian principles in order to prac- 
tise what it requires. Only let me add, do not be rash in saying, 
I cannot live as a Christian here, and therefore I will abandon it. 
That is very often an excuse for self-indulgence. It is very 
often an excuse for not determining to be firm and faithful. It is 
supposing that you can do your duty best on the soft lawn, and not 
on the hard and tented battle-field. Wherever Providence has 
placed you, make the experiment if you can faithfully serve God 
there. And if you find that you cannot serve God, then you have 
no alternative. If you are about to choose a business, let it be one 
in which you can secure your Sabbaths. Give not up your Sab- 
baths ; do not sacrifice them. It is not rich men who will feel 
the loss of such an institution, but the poor. Depend upon it, 
that the working man will get no more wages for his seven days' 
work than he now gets for six. It is a maxim of political economy, 
which is worth repeating from the pulpit, that the amount of 
wages is always dependent upon the amount of labour. Where 
there are few labourers and much to be done, there wages will be 
high j where there are many labourers and less to be done, there 
wages will be low. Now if you add a seventh day over all the 
kingdom to the six working days of the week, you bring a seventh 
part more of all the labourers in the land into the labour market, 
and wages will proportionately decrease. Rely upon it, that by 
sacrificing your Sabbaths you will be dead losers even in a tem- 
poral point of view. 

Therefore, my dear friends, stand fast for your privileges: 
5* 



54 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

" Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." It is the poor 
man's privilege; the Sabbath is emphatically the poor man's day; 
and nothing is to me more beautiful than this thought, that there 
is a day that comes round among the days of the week, in which 
the poorest man and the richest man may meet in the sanctuary, 
and say, "We are peers; though equally sinners by nature, we 
are equally saints by grace ;" and in this world, where men have 
divided so much and monopolized so much, there is still a place 
where the rich and the poor, the mightiest noble and the meanest 
peasant, can meet together and feel that " the Lord is the maker 
of them all." I advocate the maintenance of the Sabbath on 
these low grounds ; but I advocate it also on higher grounds than 
these, but which I need not now repeat. I say again, therefore, 
my dear friends, never give up your Sabbaths. Labour, as many 
young men do labour, to gain more time on your week-day even- 
ings for the cultivation of your minds, and for the study of all 
that can adorn, and beautify, and perfect them, as Christians and 
heirs of immortality ; but never, never surrender this greatest of 
privileges — the Sabbath. 

And lastly, I would say, in your homes " seek first the king- 
dom of God and his righteousness, and all other things shall be 
added unto you." "Wherever there is a fireside, let there be an 
altar ; seek the blessing of Grod in your homes, and depend upon 
it that blessing will not be withheld from you. One reason why 
there are so many sad homes is just this, that there are so many 
homes in which there are no altars. One reason why there are 
so many undutiful children is, that no blessing has been asked by 
the parents on behalf of the children. Seek, therefore, in your 
homes, " first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all 
other things will be added unto you." 

In short, Daniel found, what every true Christian has found ; 
that Christian principle is the highest expediency. 



55 



LECTURE V. 

BABYLON, THE GOLDEN HEAD. 

'•'Thou, king, art a king of kings : for the God of heaven hath given thee 
a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of 
men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given 
into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head 
of gold."— Daniel ii. 37, 33. 

This chapter records a prophecy revealed to Nebuchadnezzar, 
and through him, as the mere organ of utterance, to us, of what 
shall be the succession of the kingdoms of the world till the day 
when the great stone, the rock that is laid in Zion, shall grind 
them to powder, and there shall rise and nourish on their ruins 
the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign 
for ever and ever. This great image is meant to be a standing 
symbol, representative, as Daniel explains it, of four successions 
of supreme and sovereign kingdoms, beginning in the days of 
Nebuchadnezzar. History shows that there have been just four 
universal kingdoms in the world, and only four ; those very four 
which were clearly foreshadowed to the king, and explained by 
Daniel as the interpretation of the dream. The first supreme 
kingdom without a rival, was the kingdom of Babylon, or sym- 
bolically the Head of Cold ; the second kingdom was the Medo- 
Persian, which I shall hereafter more fully explain. The third 
kingdom was the Macedonian, which every one knows to have 
been for a season universal. The fourth kingdom was divided 
into ten kingdoms, as the two feet of the image were divided into 
ten toes. These ten kingdoms, which I shall also show to have 
actually existed, and the prediction thus to have been fulfilled, 
have tried to mingle, one or other having set up to absorb the rest 
and be supreme, and all, in every instance, have failed. Since the 
Roman empire was divided into ten kingdoms, Charlemagne has 
swept the world, and retired unsuccessful from the effort to make 



56 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

a universal sovereignty. After hiin, and others who might be 
named, Napoleon visited every land, and subjected almost every 
country in Europe : but just as it seemed to be within his reach 
to lord it over all the world, and to construct out of the ten king- 
doms a new and universal sovereignty, the snow fell softly and 
beautifully from heaven, as the light upon an infant's eye ; but 
those same insignificant snow-flakes formed themselves into ram- 
parts that checked his troops, and ultimately made shrouds and 
graves for all his chivalry. So that we have already, in the his- 
tory of the past, clear evidence that what Daniel here describes as 
a dream, and gives the interpretation of, was a prophecy of that 
which has actually occurred, so that history in its chapters sounds 
the echo of truth in the prophecies of God. 

In looking at the introduction to this vision, and the failure of 
the magi to explain it, you will notice the unreasonable require- 
ment of the king. He substantially said, "I shall not be satisfied 
by you astrologers giving me an interpretation of my dream ; you 
must state what the dream itself was, and I shall thereby have 
proof — for it seemed as if he were a skeptic even in his own reli- 
gion — I shall have proof by your thus telling me the nature of 
my dream, that you have a divine authority adequate to expound 
and unfold the substance of that dream. " The magicians and 
astrologers made every excuse and apology : first, that the thing 
was uncommon y and secondly, that no king or dreamer had ever 
made such a requirement before, and that no wise man, or magi- 
cian, or astrologer, had even explained such a thing before. At 
this, the king became furious, and, like all men who have great 
power as well as ungovernable passions, he orders them to be 
slain. That king is but a specimen of what unsanctified man 
becomes when he has too great power. It is well that man in 
this world should not have absolute power. It is too awful a 
prerogative for him to possess in this dispensation ; it never has 
been wielded rightly, and it never will be until man is made a 
new creature, and all things are become new. At present we 
need restraint, modifications, and limitations — constitutional laws 
that counterbalance the excessive weight of democracy on the one 
hand, and check the effects of despotism in its fury on the other, 
so that the machinery of government may best answer its ends. 



BABYLON, THE GOLDEN HEAD. 57 

Daniel, hearing of the king's decree, went into the royal presence 
and begged for a little time. And why did Daniel ask time ? the 
answer is given in the subsequent verse : he asked time in order 
that he might go and speak to God, and implore on bended knee 
his help, instruction, and guidance. And accordingly, we find 
him, after making his request to Arioch, " making the thing 
known to his companions, that they would desire mercies of the 
God of heaven concerning this secret ; that Daniel and his fellows 
should not perish with the rest of the wise men of Babylon." If 
we are in difficulty, the right resource is prayer. There is no 
question that God does answer prayer. He may not answer it in 
the precise way which we in our ignorance prescribe, but he will 
answer it in the way that is most for his glory and our good. 
Whatever be the nature of our trial, we are warranted in ap- 
proaching God, and beseeching him to remove it; whatever be 
the thorn that is most poignant, we are warranted in asking God 
to extract it. It is no just objection to this, to say, we may be 
asking what is not good for us ; it is not our province to deter- 
mine this, but God's. It is our part to unbosom the wants of 
our hearts, and oifer up the honest petitions of our souls, and to 
rest confident in this, that God will not give what would prove 
our present or our eternal ruin. 

When Daniel had prayed to God and had received an answer to 
his prayers, what did he next do ? He instantly returned to thank 
God. The man who prays sincerely in the morning will praise as 
sincerely at night. " Is any man afflicted ? let him pray. Is any 
merry? let him sing psalms/-' It is wrong to be Christians when 
we are in want of any thing, and to be atheists when we have ob- 
tained it. Let us ask as Christians, and praise as Christians. Let 
us appeal to God for what we want; and then let us give the 
glory to God when we have obtained what we asked. 

Daniel then goes to the king, and announces to him this great 
fact, that "there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets." And 
with beautiful humility he adds, " It is not because of the wisdom 
that is in me, that I am able to make known this secret, but it is 
for the glory of Him who has taught me, and who is willing to do 
good to thee." 

He next proceeds to explain to the king what he had seen in 



58 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

his vision — an image which is here described. He then explains 
what that image represented. In this lecture I shall only be able 
to call your attention to " the head of gold." The text, therefore, 
on which I shall specially speak in this Lecture is, (verses 37, 
38,) " Thou, king, art a king of kings : for the God of heaven 
hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And 
wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and 
the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath 
made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold;" 
plainly meaning, " thy kingdom or thy state is so." 

The church of God was now captive in Babylon. How deeply 
distressed was the whole of Israel at this era ! The glory had 
departed from between the cherubim ; the sons and the daughters 
of Judah were captives beside the Euphrates; the sacred vessels 
of the sanctuary were now the property of the spoiler. Their 
grand temple was in ruins; and " Ichabod, Ichabocl," " The glory 
is departed," was the sad inscription too legible to the heart of 
every captive in Babylon. But in this state of outward depres- 
sion you will notice how God compensated for all external disad- 
vantages by special manifestations of his wisdom and his power. 
He showed them that he was not dependent upon outward things; 
that when all ordinances have passed away, the Lord of the ordi- 
nance can take their place, and more than compensate for their 
absence. Is it not still often felt in the experience of the people 
of God, that when the outward fabric is dissolved, the inward 
glory, that seemed restricted to its walls, only breaks forth with 
greater splendour, and spreads throughout the world with greater 
speed ? Was it not to the church in the wilderness ; to the two 
witnesses prophesying in sackcloth ; to the woman who was ob- 
liged to flee from the persecuting power of the Roman apostasy, 
that God revealed most clearly the riches of his grace, and made 
known with the greatest power the manifestations of his mind and 
will ? Often, when the visible church is in ruins, does God con- 
struct upon its wreck a yet more glorious fane — a house not made 
with hands — more beautiful than the temples of Balbec, than the 
cathedrals of Europe, more splendid than the theatres of Ionia, 
more magnificent than the temple of Solomon in all its glory. It 
is often when the church has no mitre on her head, no Urini and 



BABYLON, THE GOLDEN HEAD. 59 

Thummim upon her breast, that you may read most legibly the 
bright inscription on her brow, " Blessed are the pure in heart, 
for they shall see God." The breaking of the outward crutch 
makes her lean more simply upon God. The departure of the 
beautiful sign makes her think more of the inner and the precious 
substance. You will see, too, in conformity with this idea, how 
God has ever given the greatest manifestations of his mind to suf- 
ferers. To a captive beside the banks of the Ulai and the Hid- 
clekel, i. e. to Daniel, God made known the greatest portions of his 
mind and will, as these were to be unfolded in future ages. To 
an exile and a prisoner, amid the dreary solitudes of Patmos, i. e. 
to John, God revealed that grand procession of saints, and mar- 
tyrs, and kings, and dynasties, and heroes, and conquerors, the 
history of which is recorded in the Apocalypse, and the fulfilment 
of which is contained in every chapter of human history. To the 
men who felt they had nothing upon earth, did God make known 
most plainly how much they had in heaven. To the eye that was 
shut upon all the splendours of time, did God disclose in the 
greatest fulness the glories of eternity. And just as God made 
known most of his mind to those who were most separate from 
the world, he will also discover most of the meaning of his word, 
to those who are least bound up with the cares, the anxieties, the 
pomps, and the vanities of this present life. 

The first thing that occurred, when God was about to reveal to 
Daniel his purpose, was the silencing of the wisdom of man. 
These magicians owned their ignorance before God revealed his 
wisdom. It is thus that God shows the wisdom of man to be 
folly, in order that the wise man may not glory in wisdom \ and 
the strength of man to be but weakness, in order that the strong 
man may not glorify in his strength. In the case of the Egyp- 
tian magicians he showed the weakness of human power ; in the 
case of the Chaldean magicians he taught the ignorance of human 
wisdom ; and in both cases he led prince and people from the 
broken cisterns to the divine and original fount. 

The four empires, as I have already explained, are the Baby- 
lonian, the Persian, the Grseco-Macedonian, and the Roman em- 
pires ; and the last, the empire of the stone cut out without hands, 
represents the empire of the gospel. 



60 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

The first kingdom, then, here represented by the head of gold, 
was that of Babylon. Let me just briefly notice what is said 
about it in the word of Grod, and in what respects that which was 
prophesied of it has been fulfilled. You will always perceive that 
one kingdom passes from the stage the moment that the other 
comes on. In other words, the Persian kingdom was constructed 
from the ruins of the Babylonian ; the Grasco-Macedonian was 
constructed from the ruins of the Persian ; and the Roman king- 
dom rose upon the ruins of all that preceded it. 

About 612 years b. c, Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Nineveh; or, 
in the language of Scripture, as shown to be true by the disclo- 
sures of Layard, "made its grave ;" burying in the deep and silent 
earth all its grandeur, its pomp, and its splendour. And when 
Nineveh, till that time the greatest kingdom upon earth, was thus 
entombed in its grave, Babylon ascended the throne, and swayed 
the sceptre over all the nations of the world. The walls of the 
city of Babylon, as we read not only in Scripture but in Xeno- 
phon, the beautiful and classic Greek historian, were of gigantic 
size, measuring sixty miles in circumference ; and the breadth of 
these walls, which were very solid, being built of brick cemented 
with bitumen, a substance produced upon the soil, were capable of 
allowing six chariots, each with two horses, to drive abreast upon 
them. The city had one hundred gates of solid brass. The 
temple of Bel, or of Belus, as it is called by classic writers, had 
a circumference of half a mile, and was upward of one thousand 
feet in height, or nearly three times the height of St. Paul's cathe- 
dral. The fertility of the whole region of Chaldea, watered by 
the Tigris and the Euphrates, was so great that classical histo- 
rians, Herodotus and Strabo, tell us that it produced two hundred- 
fold ; i. e. that one seed of corn, if I may use this mode of illus- 
tration, produced in the ear two hundred seeds ; a degree of 
fertility unrivalled in any modern country. This I state to justify 
the description of the prophet, when he calls Babylon " the ex- 
cellency of Chaldea/' and literally, " the glory of kingdoms." 
Again, what is the sign of it in Nebuchadnezzar's dream? " The 
head of gold;" in its natural and physical properties the most 
valuable of the four metals. 

In order to show you the descriptions given of it by other pro- 



BABYLON, THE GOLDEN HEAD. 61 

phets of God, I refer to the prophet Jeremiah, who thus speaks 
of it in chap, xxvii. 5-8 : " I have made the earth, the man, and 
the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by 
my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed 
meet unto me. And now have I given all these lands into the 
hands of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant ; and 
the beast of the field have I given him also to serve him. And 
all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until 
the very time of his land come : and then many nations and great 
kings shall serve themselves of him. And it shall come to pass, 
that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebu- 
chadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck 
under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, 
saith the Lord, with the sword, and with the famine, and with 
the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand/' You 
have in these words the investiture of the king of Babylon with 
universal sovereignty : in other words, " the empire of the head 
of gold," in all its magnificence ; characterized by unrivalled 
fertility, wielding a dominion superior to that of the nations 
around, with no limits but the will and the power of the monarch. 
We then find that the head of gold passes away, to give place to 
an empire rising from its ruins, only less magnificent than the 
former. And in order to show how truly history is the echo of 
prophecy, I will quote the predictions of the downfall of Babylon, 
and then add the facts of its ruin, as those facts are recorded by 
Xenophon, Strabo, and Herodotus, the heathen historians. 

I will give, I say, first of all the predictions of God, as these 
were uttered many years before its fall, and then I will read the 
facts recorded in history by impartial writers, who did not even 
know of the prophecy, and who could not have the least design 
or intention of showing its fulfilment. The first passage to which 
I refer is Jer. xxv. 11, 12, and this is a summary of all that 
follows, where God says, " This whole land shall be a desolation, 
and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of 
Babylon seventy years." You recollect I showed you the pro- 
phecy that all nations should serve him, and here you read what 
is to follow, " And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are 
accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that 



62 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

nation, saith the Lord, for their iniquity, and the land of the 
Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations. " The captivity 
of the Jews in Babylon was to last seventy years : and just while 
their punishment lasted, the prosperity of Babylon was to last, 
and no longer. I will now direct your attention to Isaiah xiii., 
" The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amos did see;" 
and I will read such verses only as apply immediately to the 
subject before us. At verse 4 — and I will thank you to notice 
the very words used by the prophet, because the evidence of the 
inspiration of these prophets will be rendered the more plain by 
your observing how minutely each prediction has been fulfilled, — 
" The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great 
people ; a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered 
together : the Lord of hosts mustereth the host of the battle. 
They corn^ from a far country, from the end of heaven, even the 
Lord, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole 
land. Howl ye ; for the day of the Lord is at hand ; it shall 
come as a destruction from the Almighty. Therefore shall all 
hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt. And they 
shall be afraid : pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them ; they 
shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth : they shall be amazed 
one at another ; their faces shall be as flames. Behold, the day 
of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to 
lay the land desolate : and he shall destroy the sinners thereof 
out of it." Then, verse 17, " Behold, I will stir up the Medes," 
— the very name of the nation which was to destroy them is 
specified — " which shall not regard silver ; and as for gold, they 
shall not delight in it. Their bows also shall dash the young 
men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the 
womb; their eye shall not spare children. And Babylon, the 
glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall 
be as when Grod overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never 
be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to 
generation ;" and the prophecy grows more specific : " Neither 
shall the Arabian pitch tent there ; neither shall the shepherds 
make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie 
there ; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures ; and 
owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the 



BABYLON, THE GOLDEN HEAD. (53 

wild beasts of the island shall cry in their desolate houses, and 
dragons in their pleasant palaces : and her time is near to come, 
and her days shall not be prolonged." Then at chap. xiv. 4, 
" Thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, 
and say, How hath the oppressor ceased ! the golden city ceased !" 
Then, (verse 11,) " thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and 
the noise of thy viols \ the worm is spread under thee, and the 
worms cover thee." Verse 15, " Yet thou shalt be brought down 
to hell, to the sides of the pit." Verse 19, " Thou art cast out of 
thy grave like an abominable branch." Verse 22, " I will rise 
up against them, saith the Lord of hosts, and cut off from 
Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew, saith the 
Lord." Then chap. xlvi. 27 — recollect that Grod is predicting 
here the destruction of Babylon, and the mode in which that 
destruction should be effected, though seventy years aad upward 
before any thing of the kind had taken place — " That saith to the 
deep, Be dry, and I will dry up thy river : that saith of Cyrus," 
— before Cyrus was born — " He is my shepherd, and shall perform 
all my pleasure : even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built j 
and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid;" giving a pro- 
phecy of the rise of Jerusalem, emerging from the ruins of 
Babylon. 

I then call your attention to Jer. 1. : "The word that the Lord 
spake against Babylon and against the land of the Chaldeans by 
Jeremiah the prophet. Declare ye among the nations, and 
publish, and set up a standard ; publish and conceal not : say, 
Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in 
pieces ; her idols are confounded, her images are broken in pieces. 
For out of the north there cometh up a nation against her, which 
shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein ; they 
shall remove, they shall depart, both man and beast." Again, 
verse 9, "For, lo, I will raise and cause to come up against 
Babylon an assembly of great nations from the north country : 
and they shall set themselves in array against her ; from thence 
she shall be taken : their arrows shall be as of a mighty expert 
man j none shall return in vain. And Chaldea shall be a spoil : 
all that spoil her shall be satisfied, saith the Lord." Again, at 
verses 12, 13, " Your mother shall be sore confounded ; she that 



64 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

bare you shall be ashamed : behold, the hindermost of the nations 
shall be a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert. Because of the 
wrath of the Lord it shall not be inhabited, but it shall be wholly 
desolate : every one that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished, 
and hiss at all her plagues." Again, at verses 15, 16, " Shout 
against her round about : she hath given her hand : her founda- 
tions are fallen, her walls are thrown down : for it is the ven- 
geance of the Lord : take vengeance upon her ; as she hath done, 
do unto her. Cut off the sower from Babylon, and him that 
handleth the sickle in the time of harvest : for fear of the 
oppressing sword they shall turn every one to his people, and they 
shall flee every one to his own land." Again, at verses 24-26, 
" I have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, Babylon, 
and thou wast not aware, : thou art found, and also caught, be- 
cause thou, hast striven against the Lord. The Lord hath opened 
his armoury, and hath brought forth the weapons of his indigna- 
tion : for this is the work of the Lord G-od of hosts in the land 
of the Chaldeans. Come against her from the utmost border, 
open her storehouses : cast her up as heaps, and destroy her 
utterly : let nothing of her be left." Again, in chap. li. verse 35, 
" The violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon, shall 
the inhabitant of Zion say j and my blood upon the inhabitants 
of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say." And lastly, verse 47, " There- 
fore, behold, the days come, that I will do judgment upon the 
graven images of Babylon : and her whole land shall be con- 
founded, and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her." 

Then, once more, turn to chap. li. ver. 36: "Therefore thus 
saith the Lord ; Behold, I will plead thy cause, and take ven- 
geance for thee ; and I will dry up her sea, and make her springs 
dry." And again, ver. 37, "And Babylon shall become heaps, 
a dwelling-place for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, 
without an inhabitant." And again, ver. 39, " In their heat I 
will make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they 
may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not awake, saith the 
Lord." And again, ver. 41, " How is Sheshach taken ! and how 
is the praise of the whole earth surprised ! How is Babylon be- 
come an astonishment among the nations!" Ver. 44, "And I 
will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his 



BABYLON, THE GOLDEN HEAD. 65 

mouth that which he hath swallowed up : and the nations shall 
not flow together any more unto him : yea, the wall of Babylon 
shall fall." And again, ver. 46, 47; " And lest your heart faint, 
and ye fear for the rumour that shall be heard in the land ; a 
rumour shall both come one year, and after that in another year 
shall come a rumour, and violence in the land, ruler against ruler. 
Therefore, behold, the days come, that I will do judgment upon 
the graven images of Babylon : and her whole land shall be con- 
founded, and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her." 

I have thus read the leading parts of that great burden of pro- 
phecy against Babylon. I now quote in evidence of the fulfil- 
ment of these, the prophecies of Grod, the dispassionate testimony 
of the heathen historians : and I shall then give you an account 
not only of the rise, as I have already briefly done, but also of 
the fall of the head of gold, previous to the silver empire taking 
its place, and its order in succession onward to the end. 

First, then, in these prophecies, Cyrus is specified as the gene- 
ral who was to march his forces against Babylon. Xenophon 
directly states that such was the fact. Babylon, trusting in its 
gigantic walls, and in its provisions for twenty years, adequate to 
maintain it in case of its being besieged, instead of preparing to 
repel the invading army, gave itself, its whole population, from 
the prince upon the throne clown to the meanest of his subjects, 
to debauchery, riot, profligacy, and drunkenness. In the next 
place, Cyrus, after he had come in array against Babylon, besieged 
it for years without success, and at last fell upon the expedient 
of digging trenches round the walls of Babylon, ostensibly for 
blockade, but really to divert the waters of the Euphrates from 
their accustomed course, and leave in the empty channel a path- 
way for his soldiers to march into the city. It was, as I have de- 
scribed, surrounded by vast walls; but the river Euphrates rolled 
through the midst of it. There was therefore an opening thus 
formed through the centre of the city; only there were walls upon 
each side, or on each bank of the river, with gates to each street 
leading down to it ; and the plan of Cyrus was therefore to divert 
the waters of the Euphrates into the trenches he had dug, and to 
make the dry central channel a road for his troops to march down 
in order to gain possession of the city. Herodotus, the father 

6* 



66 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

of historians, relates that, even after having marched along the 
bed of the river, the obstacles to his entrance were just as great 
as elsewhere ; for there were gates to each street leading to the 
banks of the river ; and if these had been secured, the obstruc- 
tion to the entrance of Cyrus would have been complete. But 
there was a prophecy — part of which I read to you — that these 
gates should not be shut; and the Babylonians, not suspecting 
the stratagem of Cyrus in diverting the waters of the river, left 
their gates open, as if in conscious possession of impregnable 
security ; when part of the army, therefore, entered at one side 
of the city, marching up the bed of the river, and another part 
of his troops at the other side of the city, marching down the 
bed of the river, they found each of these gates open, which 
would not have been the case had not the people been indulging 
in feasting and drunkenness; the troops therefore entered by 
every gate; and before the Babylonians were aware that the 
enemy was so near at hand, their great and impregnable capital 
was in the hands of the next empire, the empire of the Persians. 

We notice another minute point that was singularly fulfilled. 
It was predicted that the enemy should come upon them unawares, 
and that " one post should run to meet another in the midst of 
the siege." Now, that such was literally the fact is recorded by 
Herodotus, for he says that those at one end of the city were in 
the hands of Cyrus before those at the other end of the city were 
aware of his attack, and before they had time to give the alarm ; 
thus fulfilling the prediction of the prophet, that post should run 
to post, and watchman to watchman, to give the awful and start- 
ling alarm that the forces of Cyrus were upon them. 

Then it is predicted by the prophet, that " they that were 
drunken should sleep a perpetual sleep;" and that "the two- 
leaved gates should be thrown open." It is stated by the histo- 
rian that the monarch was indulging in a feast, and was intoxi- 
cated with wine, surrounded by all his princes, nobles, and cour- 
tiers, at the very moment when the city had fallen into the hands 
of the Persian army ; and hearing a noise outside the palace, he 
insisted on knowing what it was; and when some of the chief 
princes rushed to the gates of the palace in order to ascertain the 
cause, and threw them open for that purpose, they thus fulfilled 



BABYLON, THE GOLDEN HEAD. 67 

the prophecy — the troops of Cyrus instantly rushed in, and Bel- 
shazzar and his princes were slaughtered in the midst of their 
festival : " the drunken slept a perpetual sleep. " Thus you have 
every prediction that God gave by the mouth of Isaiah and Jere- 
miah fulfilled to the very letter : and that fulfilment is recorded 
by the dispassionate pens of the historians of ancient Greece. 

I shall now quote a few short extracts from the works of mo- 
dern travellers; in order to show how complete the ruin of Babylon 
has been, and how minutely each prophecy has been fulfilled. 
For these last I am mainly indebted to Dr. Keith's useful work 
on the fulfilment of prophecy. Porter, in his travels, states that 
" mounds of temples and palaces were everywhere visible •" u a 
vast succession of mounds of ruins is all that now remains of Ba- 
bylon." What Porter saw when he visited the spot had been 
foretold of God, when he prophesied that nothing should be left. 
Richards, when he visited it, found that " vast heaps constitute 
all that now remains of ancient Babylon ; there are no inhabit- 
ants." God had declared, " It shall never be inhabited." Kep- 
pel, another traveller, who visited the same spot, says, " Babylon 
is spurned by the heel of the Ottoman, the Israelite, and the sons 
of Ishmael." God had said beforehand, " The Arab shall not pitch 
his tent there." This is the more remarkable, because the Arabs 
are a nomadic race, wanderers that are found in almost every 
place where they can find temporary shelter or provender for 
their cattle : and Captain Mignon relates, that when he reached 
the spot, accompanied by six Arabs, he could not induce them to 
remain all night among the ruins, because, they alleged, the place 
was haunted. Buckingham, another traveller, says, " All the 
people of the country assert that it is dangerous to approach the 
mounds of Babylon on account of the multitude of evil spirits 
that dwell among them." Man's excuse may arise from super- 
stition ; but the result is, the accomplishment of the ancient pro- 
phecy — " The Arab shall not pitch his tent there." 

We have thus seen, then, the rise, the magnificence, and the 
fall of Babylon j and in it we have seen God's word completely 
fulfilled. God's word is more powerful than princes; more en- 
during than dynasties : it moves softly and silently, yet surely, 
to victory; turning obstacles into impulses, and obstructions into 



68 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

facilities, until it shall appear enthroned upon the ruins of the 
kingdoms of this world, and become the glory and the praise of 
the ransomed people of God. 

We may here observe how transient is human greatness ! The 
great walls of Babylon, on which, as we read, six chariots could 
ride abreast, are no more. Its magnificent temple, which caught 
the first rays of the rising sun, and reflected the last beams of the 
setting sun — the palace in which the choicest wines were drunk, 
and the sacred vessels of the sanctuary were profaned — are gone ; 
the golden head is buried in the dust ; the hum of its mighty 
population is silenced. The Arab ventures not to pitch his tent 
there ; and the owl, hooting amid the broken ruins, seems to attest 
how perishable is all that man calls great ! — how lasting is all that 
God pronounces true ! 

The duration of Babylon's power, you notice, in the next place, 
was specified to be seventy years. It was destined to last only 
till it had accomplished God's purposes. The kingdom is ours; 
and its duration we fancy that we are able to control. It is not 
so. We are in the hands of God, and the times and the seasons 
are all specified by him. The king of Babylon thought he had 
raised a great empire for his glory: in reality, he had built a 
school-house in which God was the teacher; a prison-house in 
which He was to punish his people for a season on account of 
their iniquities. And as soon as the work appointed of God had 
been accomplished, the "glory of the Chaldees' excellency" de- 
parts, " the golden head" falls, and the great empire is at an end. 

As its end drew near, Daniel, in clearer terms, as I shall show 
from the sequel of the prophecy, came to predict its ruin. From 
this a most able and talented writer on the prophecies of Daniel, 
Mr. Birks, the son-in-law of the venerable Mr. Bickerstetb,* 

* It is difficult to overstate the loss which the church of Christ on earth has 
sustained by the removal of this eminent, excellent, Christian, and Protestant 
minister. 

He was ever ready to aid, by his advocacy, the cause of truth ; liberal, yet 
not latitudinarian ; a zealous contender for the faith, and yet never betrayed 
into bitterness of feeling or violence of speech. He loved his church, but he 
loved Christianity still more. No man was so tenacious of essential truth, yet 
none rejoiced more than he did in the company of the good and faithful of 
every name. He possessed great clearness of mind, and yet greater warmth of 



BABYLON, THE GOLDEN HEAD. 69 

argues, that we may expect that, as God revealed by his prophets 
more clearly — for Daniel states that he " knew hy boolcs" the 
number and the elate of the seventy years — the time when the 
captivity should be ended, so, as we draw near to the end of this 
dispensation, he will make more clear, intelligible, and distinct, 
the years that number the times of the Gentiles. 

We must not suppose there was any thing strange in God's 
revealing this to a heathen prince, and through the medium of 
what appears to us so common and trivial a thing as a dream. 
To Abraham, Moses, and Job, God spoke face to face; but in 
general he revealed future events by means of dreams. And he 
himself declares, " If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord 
will make myself known to him in a vision, and will speak unto 
him in dreams." Jacob was promised his patrimony in a dream. 
In a dream the Lord appeared to Solomon, and bade him ask 
what he wished. In a dream Pharaoh was warned of the famine 
that was about to visit Egypt ; and from some traditional recollec- 
tions of these facts arises the popular belief, that that which is 
about to come to pass is sometimes revealed to men in dreams. 
It may be so. There is no reason to conclude that God does not 
come into closer contact with the human mind than many are dis- 
posed to believe ; only you are not to read Providence and Scrip- 
ture in the light of your dream ; you are to read your dream in 
the light of Scripture. If in a dream any thing seems revealed 
to you contrary to Scripture, it is not from God. If it be con- 



heart; earnest and unwearied advocacy of truth ; a walk unimpeachable before 
the severest censor, and beautiful, because truly apprehended by the people 
of God. 

Every Christian that knew him loved him. Even his enemies — the enemies 
of truth — hesitated to select Mr. Bickersteth as the object of vituperation, or 
satire, or assault, well aware, that in their selection of one so widely revered, 
their attack would recoil upon themselves far sooner than in the case of other 
and more easily vulnerable champions of truth. 

His removal at a crisis when his life and counsel were so singularly needed 
is to us inexplicable. Pei'haps it is judgment beginning at the house of God, 
and thus his gain may be not only our loss but our punishment. Very soon he 
will come with his coming Lord, and such of us as may be alive will meet the 
sublime procession in the air, and ©ur separation, so widely and bitterly be- 
wailed, will render our meeting again, where separations are unknown, more 
glorious. Even so, come, Lord Jesus ! 



70 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

sistent with, the Scripture, it is from Gocl. But recollect, you 
live not by what you dream, but by what you read in God's 
Holy Word. Any one that adds to that Word, to him shall be 
added its curses ) any one that subtracts from it, from him shall 
be subtracted the promises revealed in it. 

In the next place, is there not in the destruction of Babylon a 
foreshadow of what shall be the end of this dispensation ? Cyrus 
burst upon Babylon while its princes and its people were feasting 
and revelling ; and so in the period that immediately precedes 
our Lord's advent it will be asked, " Where is the promise of his 
coming ? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as 
they were from the beginning of the creation." I believe that 
only God's people will be taught to anticipate that blessed day, 
that glorious epoch. They alone will be found resting, by retro- 
spective faith, upon that perfect sacrifice, which speaks better 
things than the blood of Abel -, their eyes stretching through the 
vista of the future, to catch the rays of the approaching sun, 
which shall rise and shine from his meridian throne to set no more. 

To those that look for him, " he will appear the second time 
without sin unto salvation." May we not believe, that we have 
in the destruction of the literal Babylon a type and foreshadow- 
ing of what will be the destruction of that Babylon of which it 
was the prototype, and with whose destruction the Apocalypse is 
so fully and unmistakably charged ? It is there stated that 
" her plagues shall come" upon Babylon " in one day, death, and 
mourning, and famine." You recollect my endeavouring to show 
you what the future prospects of Rome are. My belief always 
was, that the pontiff would be replaced on his throne ; but, along 
with that, the clear indications of the prophetic word seem to be, 
that by his attempts to assert a supremacy that is God's, and to 
wield a sceptre from which the prestige and the glory seem to be 
gone for ever, he should precipitate on himself only a more terri- 
ble and consuming catastrophe. 

But Babylon has passed away; and modern Babylon will pass 
away too. Where, however, are we ? and what shall we do when 
the crash and desolation of the last hour comes ? Is our citizen- 
ship in heaven ? Are our hearts and pleasures beyond the skies? 
Are we travelling upon our road in practical obedience to the text 



BABYLON, THE GOLDEN HEAD. 71 

— "Be ye not conformed to this world V Are we walking amid 
these dark shadows that are creeping over the surface of the whole 
earth, as pilgrims and strangers, " looking for a city that hath 
foundations, whose builder and maker is God ?" Does the disso- 
lution of the kingdoms of the world, the breaking up of ancient 
establishments and hoary dynasties, the heaving of all things, 
church and state both together, as if some terrible subterranean 
forces were pressing upward and ready every moment to explode 
and leave all in ruins, affect us ? Are we leaning and trusting 
upon these things ? Are we thinking of our wealth, our rank, 
our property, our sect, our church, our party, more than we are 
thinking of Christ ? Are we looking for the Lord ? Does the 
night of approaching doom only warn us to prepare for the glo- 
rious jubilee that shall follow ? " Take heed to yourselves, lest 
at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and 
drunkenness, and with the cares of this life, and so that day 
come upon you unawares V May He add his blessing, and to his 
name be the praise. Amen. 



72 



LECTURE VI. 

THE MEDOPERSIAN AND GRiECO-MACEDONIAN EMPIRES. 

"And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another 
third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth." — Danielii. 89. 

This is part of the explanation of the vision seen by Nebuchad- 
nezzar. He saw a great image, of which we read at verse 31, 
that this great image " stood before him, whose brightness was 
excellent, and the form thereof was terrible/'' The head of this 
image was of fine gold, "his breast and his arms of silver, his belly 
and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and 
part of clay." And the king saw until " a stone cut out without 
hands smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, 
and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, 
the silver, and the gold broken to pieces together, and became 
like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors; and the wind 
carried them away, that no place was found for them : and the 
stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled 
the whole earth." This was the dream j and then follows the 
interpretation : — " Thou, king, art a king of kings : for the 
God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, strength, and 
glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts 
of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine 
hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this 
head of gold." This was the first kingdom. Then the second 
kingdom, which is likened to the breast and the arms of silver, is 
described in verse 89 : " And after thee shall arise another king- 
dom inferior to thee." And then the third universal kingdom is 
represented by the image having " the belly and the thighs of 
brass," and is described as " another third kingdom of brass, 
which shall bear rule over all the earth." And of the fourth 
kingdom, " the legs of iron," it is predicted, " The fourth king- 



THE SILVER AND BRASS EMPIRES. 73 

dom shall be strong as iron : forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces 
and subdueth all things : and as iron that breaketh all these, 
shall it break in pieces and bruise." 

Now, I explained before, that in all the records of history there 
have been but four supreme, universal, absolute monarchies from 
the beginning; the first being that of Babylon, the sceptre of 
which extended over all the nations that were then known, and 
the sovereignty of which was undisputed, as it was impossible to 
oppose it. Such was the first, or the head of gold. In my last, 
I showed its rise, its national grandeur, its decay, and its utter 
destruction before the armies of Cyrus : we now find that another 
kingdom was to arise inferior to Babylon, just as the silver is 
inferior to the gold ; of greater territorial dimensions, but of less 
national splendour and magnificence. The twofold character that 
is here indicated — for every symbol in the Bible has its counter- 
part in history and in fact — viz. its having the breast and the two 
arms stretching out from it of silver, instantly suggests the 
historic fact that Cyrus was the monarch, that Media was one 
arm, and Persia the other ; these being two component parts of 
the kingdom of Cyrus, he being the tie that knit the two realms 
into one. Persia was the one realm, and Media the other ; the 
latter absorbed by the former, and both, like two arms, joined 
together in Cyrus, who inspired them with their vigour, wielded 
their energies with success, and established their empire from the 
rising of the sun to the going down thereof. You have then, in 
Media and Persia, or, as it is called in history, the Medo-Persian 
universal sovereignty, the fulfilment, years after Daniel wrote, of 
the symbol shown to Nebuchadnezzar, and of the prediction un- 
folded by Daniel ; and thus the coincidence between the prophecy 
and the fact is entire. 

But that you may see how truly what I state is confirmed by 
history, I shall quote two sentences — I might quote many, but I 
will confine myself to two of the most striking — the one from 
Herodotus, " the father of history," who says, in describing the 
empire of Cyrus, "Wherever Cyrus marched throughout the 
earth, it was impossible for the nations to escape him f f and the 
other from Xenophon, who, in his Cyropsedia, which, literally 
translated, means the "instruction," or " bringing-up," of Cyrus, 



74 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

and with which every schoolboy is more or less familiar — (here, I 
may mention, by the way, is one object in teaching young men the 
classics, or the learning of the Greeks and Romans ; such know- 
ledge confirms and demonstrates to mankind the veracity and 
authenticity of the writers of the word of God) — Xenophon, then, 
in his Cyropsedia, thus describes the universality of the sove- 
reignty of Cyrus : " He ruled the Medes, subverted the Syrians, 
the Assyrians, the Arabians, the Cappadocians, the Phrygians, 
the Lydians, the Carians, the Babylonians, the Indians, the 
Phoenicians, the Greeks in Asia, the Cyprians, the Egyptians, and 
struck all with such dread and terror, that none ventured to assail 
him. He subdued from his throne east, west, north, and south." 
You have thus the heathen historian leaving behind him those 
recorded facts, which form the brightest comment upon the breast 
and the two arms of silver, or the second universal monarchy, 
which during its existence subdued and reigned over the whole 
earth. After its disappearance, we have a third empire, which 
is symbolized by " the belly and the thighs of brass." This was 
the symbol that Nebuchadnezzar saw, and the interpretation of it 
by Daniel is, " a third universal sovereignty." 

Now show me, from the days of Cyrus downward to the com- 
mencement of Rome, any other empire, either from history or 
from any source whatever, that can be called universal — I mean, 
extending over the whole known world — except the Graeco-Mace- 
donian empire of Alexander the Great. He and his father Philip, 
king of Macedon, against whom Demosthenes so eloquently 
harangued, subdued the Medo-Persians, and finally and ultimately 
all the provinces of the habitable globe. This third monarchy 
was of brass ; making up in strength what it lost in value ; in 
glare and apparent splendour what it lost in real and substantial 
merit. But it also was divided, you find, into two great provinces, 
which, from their position, formed the lower or supporting parts 
of the empire. Accordingly, we ascertain from history, that 
Syria and Egypt, the lower parts of the empire, were divided ; 
and on these the colossal image, or empire of Alexander, rested. 
It was about 334 years before Christ that Alexander began his 
expedition against Persia, the second universal empire. He over- 
threw the silver monarchy, just as it had overthrown the golden 



THE SILVER AND BRASS EMPIRES. 75 

monarchy of Nebuchadnezzar ; and by the great battle of Arbela, 
which was fought about 331 years before Christ, he established 
his own undisputed supremacy. It arose upon the ruins of 
Babylon and Persia, fed its strength from their wreck, and 
stretched out a sceptre more powerful than either, till Alexander 
the Great, when he had overthrown the wide world, leaving like 
a wilderness behind what he had found to be the garden of the 
Lord before him, sat down and wept like a child, because, the 
whole world being subdued, there was no other place to conquer 
and attach to his empire. 

You have, then, in the Grseco-Macedonian empire the fulfilment 
of that portion of the image which represented the third universal 
sovereignty that occupied the whole world. In looking at this 
part of my subject, there is just one thing more I should like to 
notice. The period that comprehended the Medo-Persian and the 
Grseco-Macedonian empires, or the second and third universal 
monarchies, was, perhaps, the most brilliant in the world. The 
galaxy of heroes, poets, painters, orators, statesmen, historians, 
that shine in the firmament of that celebrated era, has perhaps 
never been equalled in brilliancy and beauty. But what I wish 
you to notice is, that while this period occupied all the attention 
of the historians, the poets, and the orators of Greece and Rome, 
and is referred to by them as the brightest and most illustrious 
in the history of the world, how little space it occupies . in the 
word of God ! 

During the course of these empires, we have the conquests of 
Cyrus, the expedition of Xerxes — Marathon, the name of which 
is almost an oration — Thermopylse, which is the burden of so 
many poets' songs — and Salamis. We have Miltiades, Themisto- 
cles, Aristides, Pericles, and Demosthenes ; in short, all that man 
can appreciate of earthly glory reached at this period its culmi- 
nating grandeur, and has commanded in every land the admiration 
of poets, and the reminiscences of historians ; but these events, so 
prominent in the records of man, are but feebly touched by the 
pencil of the Spirit of God. Great warriors — able orators — 
mighty poets — illustrious statesmen — are treated in the Bible as 
the grass that groweth up and the flower of the grass that fadeth ; 
and great truths, interwoven with man's everlasting well-being, 



76 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

are alone prominent in the word of God that liveth and endureth 
for ever and ever. But while these fade like the grass, and their 
greatest ones as the flower of the grass, the same book teaches us 
that " they that be wise shall shine as the firmament, and they 
that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." 
Man's history relates to his own heroes and victories, and these 
occupy all his pages ; God's history relates to and describes man 
in the light of eternity, and views all things as they bear upon 
that momentous issue. 

These, then, were the second and third empires ; and in verse 
40 we have the fourth empire in its undivided state. " The 
fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron," etc. This empire can 
be proved from history to be none other than the great Koman 
empire itself. From the period when Alexander swept the world 
and made it the measure of his kingdom, to the period when 
Eome gained the ascendency and became the universal empire, 
we read of no other universal, supreme, and absorbing sovereignty. 
We find from history that the Macedonian empire, which I have 
described, was overthrown about 142 years before Christ. Syria 
was conquered 64 years before Christ; Egypt 30 years before; 
and this vast empire then began its course about 30 years, or, at the 
very remotest, 142 years before Christ, and continued until 
nearly 400 years after that period, the alone supreme and uni- 
versal empire. One may also see that this the judgment formed 
by modern commentators was the universal judgment of the 
earliest writers upon the word of God. Theodoret, a Greek 
father, states that the first empire, of gold, was the Babylonian ; 
the second, of silver, was the Medo-Persian ; the third, of brass, 
the Grseco-Macedonian ; and the fourth, or iron empire, he says, 
was none else than the Roman empire itself. 

You must notice, in looking at this prophecy of Daniel, that 
more space is devoted to the history of the Roman empire than 
to that of any of the other three. A large space is devoted to 
Babylon ; but a much larger space in the Bible relates to the 
Roman empire. Why so ? The Roman soldiers were present at 
the crucifixion; a Roman officer was the first among the Gentiles 
to receive the gospel ; the Roman capitol was the pulpit of Paul ; 
the Roman people became the first converts to the gospel; through 



THE SILVER AND BRASS EMPIRES. 77 

the Roman language and by Roman roads the gospel was carried 
from the Capitol to the remotest regions of the habitable globe ; 
and on the ruins of the Roman empire was constructed that 
dread sacerdotal despotism which has corrupted the oracles of 
God, ruined the souls of mankind, and is now drunk, as I shall 
show you in a subsequent lecture, with the blood of the saints of 
God — I mean the Romish Church. 

Now, in showing the rise of the Roman universal empire, we 
notice, first, Macedon was conquered, and disappeared from occu- 
pying its place among the nations of the earth; Carthage was 
razed to the ground ; Corinth, the capital of all that was luxurious 
and refined, was reduced to ashes. Spain next fell before the 
victorious arms of Rome ; Egypt was reduced to a Roman pro- 
vince; Judea became part of the Roman empire, as the New 
Testament will show you; and Jerusalem itself, the capital of 
Judea, was torn up by the Roman ploughshare, under Titus and 
Vespasian, the Roman emperors. When Rome had thus, like 
iron, bruised and broken down all the nations of the earth, and 
reduced them under its iron sceptre, this island, a small spot in 
the midst of the deep — a country full of roving savages and wild 
barbarians — a race that knew not what civilization was, and had 
still less idea of what Christianity proclaimed — this distant isle 
of the sea provoked the cupidity and stirred the ambition of 
Rome ; at length it was invaded, and likewise subjected to the 
rule of the Roman empire. It was when the Romans had reached 
Scotland, and were subduing a portion of ifc, that Galgacus, the 
celebrated chieftain, addressed the Caledonians in the following 
words, which show how truly Rome was at this moment become 
the universal sovereign : — " These ravagers of the world," said 
the Scottish chieftain, " after all the earth has been too narrow 
for their ambition, have ransacked the sea also. If their enemy 
be rich, they are covetous; if poor, they are ambitious. The 
East cannot satiate them, no more can the West. To plunder, to 
murder, to rob, is all their delight. Violence they call dominion ; 
and wherever they make a dreary solitude, they call it peace." 
But the most decisive testimony to the universal iron supremacy 
of Rome, the fourth empire of Daniel, is given by Gibbon, who, 
as usual, is here the undesigning, the unconscious, but the faithful 



78 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

witness to the truth of the prophecies of God. Gibbon thus 
speaks of the extent of the Roman dominions : — " The empire 
was about two thousand miles in breadth, from the wall of Anto- 
ninus and northern limits of Dacia to the Atlas and the tropic of 
Cancer. It extended in length more than three thousand miles, 
from the Western ocean to the Euphrates. The arms of the re- 
public, sometimes vanquished in battle, always victorious in war, 
advanced with rapid strides to the Euphrates, and the Danube, 
and the Rhine, and the ocean ; and the image of gold, or silver, 
or brass, that might serve to represent the nations or kings, were 
successively broken by the iron monarchy of Rome." 

Thus, strange enough, Gibbon states, as if he could find no 
language so truly descriptive of historic fact as the language of 
Daniel, " The image of gold, or silver, or brass, that might serve 
to represent the nations of kings, was successively broken up by 
the iron monarchy of Rome;" so completely does God's prophecy 
find its echo in man's unconscious history. In other words, the 
infidel historian could find no language so descriptive of fact as 
the very words of prophecy in the book of Daniel ; and thus he 
proved, not only the fulfilment of prophecy, but the fulness, 
the beauty, and the force of the words in which that prophecy 
was couched. 

This iron despotism or empire is further proved to be the fourth 
universal empire, by another extract which I will give from Gib- 
bon. " There was/' says the historian, " not an inch of ground 
then known exempt from its sceptre. The modern tyrant who 
should find no resistance in his own breast, or in his people, would 
soon experience a gentle restraint from the example of his equals, 
the dread of censure, the apprehension of enemies. The object 
of his displeasure escaping the narrow limits of his dominion, 
would easily obtain, in a happier climate, a secure refuge, freedom 
of complaint, and perhaps means of revenge. But the empire 
of the Romans filled the world, and when that empire fell into 
the hands of a single person, the world became a safe and dreary 
prison for his enemies. To resist was fatal, and it was impossible 
to fly. On every side he was encompassed with a vast extent of 
sea and land, which he could never hope to traverse, without 
being discovered, seized, and restored to his irritated master. 



THE SILVER AND BRASS EMPIRES. 79 

Beyond the frontiers, he could discover nothing except the ocean, 
inhospitable deserts, and hostile tribes of fierce barbarians." 

Gibbon is my witness that the fourth kingdom should be 
" strong as iron ; forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and sub- 
dueth all things, so shall it break in pieces and bruise/' Thus 
truly is history the echo of prophecy ! God sketches the outline 
in his word, and kings, and heroes, and poets, and painters, and 
historians, as if smitten with some mysterious instinct, instantly 
rise to their places, and fill up with their details what God has so 
fully sketched. 

Now then, having looked at the evidence of the existence of 
four great empires, I ask, can any one doubt, in reading their 
history, that the prophecy which predicted that existence hun- 
dreds of years before, is inspired by the Holy Spirit of God ? 
Can we doubt, from the comparison of the prophecy, so plain, with 
the historic facts, so indisputable and so clearly established, that 
there is a God who revealed them, and does reveal secrets still ? 
Can we suppose that that man was uninspired by Him to whom 
the present and the future are equally clear, who could stand up 
in the midst of the Babylonian empire, when its grandeur and 
power seemed the prophecy of its immortality, and the sceptre of 
its monarchy a sceptre too strong for any rival to destroy, or for 
any foe to shatter ; — can we suppose that Daniel, standing under 
such circumstances, in the midst of such imperial magnificence, 
and predicting that this empire should pass away, and a second 
should speedily occupy its throne ; and that that second empire 
should also fade, and a third should take its place ; and that a 
fourth empire should arise, fiercer and more powerful than the 
three that preceded it, and, like iron, irresistibly tread down and 
subdue to its supremacy all the nations of the habitable globe; — 
could he, I say, have done all this, if he had not been inspired by 
a power far greater than any human foresight could bestow ? If 
God be in history, which we know to be the fact, is there not 
God in prophecy? and history, therefore, is but the echo resound- 
ing in the ears of the present generation of that voice which 
sounded along the corridors of time in centuries and generations 
long past. 

We notice, then, the sublime and yet humbling light in which 



80 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

all the heroes and statesmen of ancient days were thus uncon- 
sciously placed. We see Hannibal, who had never heard of God's 
prophecies, begin his wars with Rome, and train her soldiers for 
being the conquerors of the world. We see Scipio, Marius, Pom- 
pey, and Csesar, each take up the position assigned to him, and 
fight, or fall, or conquer, till they have made Rome nothing less 
and nothing more than what Daniel predicted that Rome should 
become. Thus we see the eloquence of Cicero, the poetry of 
Virgil, the odes of Horace, the annals of Tacitus, the pungent 
satires of Juvenal, the history of Gibbon, rush forward and be- 
come the witnesses to mysterious truths, which they could not 
themselves comprehend, but which are the most conclusive proofs 
that Daniel spoke by the inspiration of God, and the demonstra- 
tions to a skeptic world that God changeth the times and the sea- 
sons, he removeth kings and setteth up kings, he knoweth what 
is in the darkness and in the light, he revealeth the deep and 
secret things, and the light dwelleth with him. All these fell 
into their places just at the appointed times, and while they 
thought they were doing each his own work, all were co-operating 
to accomplish God's predictions; while they thought they were 
the statuaries cutting out the image after their own design, 
they were but the chisels in the hand of the great Statuary, un- 
consciously and unintentionally fulfilling his own grand and sub- 
lime purposes. 

In the next place, we learn the lesson that there are no 
accidents on earth — all history is thus constantly fulfilling all pro- 
phecy. If you read attentively the history of Rome, you would 
see that at times it seemed almost to struggle for existence. ~ At 
one time it depended, you would say, upon the turning of a straw, 
whether Remus and Romulus, the alleged founders of Rome, 
should be left to perish in the wilderness ; it rested, you would 
say, at another time, upon the single sword of Camillus, which 
scale should preponderate; and once the Capitol of the city was 
saved by the geese which were accidentally fed there. All these 
seem to man accidents ; and human history, read by human light, 
seems a collection of lucky and fortuitous occurrences. But when 
a Christian looks at history, it becomes all luminous in the light 
of the gospel. The sword of Camillus was chosen and calculated 



THE SILVER AND BRASS EMPIRES. 81 

by G-od as plainly as any fact in history ; the birds that saved the 
Capitol had their mission by the appointment of God ; and soldier 
and senator, poet and orator, had each his work to do, that God's 
great plans might be completed, and God's great work might be 
done. 

In the next place, we may learn that what was true of Rome, 
who fulfilled her portion of prophecy, is no less true of Great 
Britain, which is fulfilling hers. We see around us conflict, and 
trouble, and exaction, and dismay ; and we are sometimes prone 
to tremble, as if the glorious issue were placed in jeopardy. Save 
yourselves that feeling : you need not tremble. Man's word does 
fail, and he that builds on it may tremble; but God's word 
endureth for ever, and heaven and earth shall pass away, but one 
jot or one tittle of this book shall not fail till all be fulfilled. 
And therefore, when I look around me in this great land of ours, 
and see all things, consciously or unconsciously, criminally or 
innocently, doing God's work — the illustrious Wellington in the 
field — the great Pitt in the senate — the invincible Nelson on the 
deck — the martyrdom or the murder, call it which you please, of 
Charles — the ascendency of Cromwell — the reign even of George 
the Fourth, and the pure and beautiful sway of her who now 
wields the sceptre of this mighty land — I discover that all are 
equally helping the purpose, and accomplishing the predictions of 
God : I rest in the Lord, and am still. In the narratives of Scott 
— the poetry of Byron — the socialism of Owen — the piety of 
Wilberforce — the atheism of Voltaire — the vulgar infidelity of 
Paine — the pantheism of Emerson — the " pamphlets for the last 
days of Carlyle," — all of them, whatever be their virtues or their 
crimes, whatever be their falsehood or their truth, whatever be 
their folly or their wisdom, are rising on the stage, each trampling 
down the other in its turn, to fulfil the purposes and manifest the 
glorious predictions of God. Their freedom and their responsi- 
bility are untouched ; the direction and the effect of all they say 
and do is clear as the stars in the firmament. Thus centuries 
have their mission and their duty to perform — moments have 
their work — all men their places ; and the most wicked, like a 
leech applied to the human body, seek to serve themselves, but 



82 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

are only doing the work of the great Physician who prescribes, 
controls, and governs them. 

The next lesson we learn from this survey is, that God is also 
in the world. The world is not an orb abandoned by the Deity, 
and left to traverse its own course, or to follow its own impulses. 
Society is not like rain-drops sprinkled in the field or on the 
pavement, without design, without cohesion or purpose ; but they 
are all under God's providential government; and God is as much 
in the midst of this great city as he was between the cherubim 
when his glory dazzled all eyes by its splendour, or when he 
revealed himself in the burning bush, or when he thundered 
upon the heights of Sinai. Our creed is not " God was/' but 
" God is." The leaf that falls from the tree, and the king that 
is struck from his throne — the storm that sweeps the broad earth, 
and the tide of war, revolution, and convulsion that desolates 
great kingdoms, are all responses to the touch of God — mission- 
aries, consciously or unconsciously, criminally or innocently, 
executing and fulfilling the everlasting purposes of Him whose 
kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and whose dominion endureth 
for ever and ever. 

In the next place, let us learn from the survey of these four 
kingdoms, the downward and deteriorating tendency of all society, 
and nations, and corporations of all sorts, if they are without 
religion. They begin with gold ; they go on to silver ; they 
deteriorate into brass ) and lastly, they end in iron. And when 
the strongest has developed itself, a stone, physically weak, as I 
shall show in future lectures, but morally omnipotent, touches 
the iron that has subdued all, and it is scattered like chaff upon 
the threshing-floor. Let us learn this great lesson, that true re- 
ligion is the sweetener and the strengthener of society. Exhaust 
religion from a country, from its schools, and its churches, and 
you exhaust the vital oxygen from the nation's air. It is only 
when the altars of a country burn with holy fire that the intellect 
of a country shall glow with pure and increasing light. It is 
just in proportion as religion leavens a nation that that nation 
stands firm on its feet, and may smile at the wear and tear of 
ages, knowing that it has immortality in proportion as it lias 
Christianity. Babylon perished, because it had no religion. The 



THE SILVER AND BRASS EMPIRES. 83 

Medo-Persian empire perished because it had no religion. The 
Graeco-Macedonian empire perished, because it had no religion j 
and the Roman empire perished, because it had no religion. 
And if you look around at the present day, you find Egypt, be- 
cause without religion, is a mere mummy ; Greece, because with- 
out religion, is dead; India, because without religion, is a moral 
desert ; . China, because without religion, is a stagnant morass ; 
and all society, domestic, national, provincial, universal, if stripped 
and deprived of its religion, becomes like a rope of sand, held 
together by political compression, but the instant that the politics 
tremble, that instant all its institutions go to decay. And this 
explains what has taken place on the continent of Europe. Why 
is France dying every day, so that one of its most illustrious 
writers has written an essay on the deterioration of France ; in 
which he shows that it is becoming daily so depopulated that they 
are obliged even to lower every succeeding year the standard of 
its army, till at length they will become pigmies instead of giants, 
as the Gauls once were ? Its moral state too is of the most awful 
description. And why is it thus sinking and deteriorating ? 
Because, as a nation, it has cast off God. And why is Prussia, 
as a nation, weak and disturbed ? Because Prussian Protestantism 
has ceased to be what Luther left it. And why is it that Spain 
has a population above the soil not one whit grander or more 
capable of noble deeds than those that sleep quietly beneath it ? 
Because it has no real religion. And why is Borne the by-word 
of the nations — its infallibility a scoff, and its sacerdotal dynasty 
the horror of all that are acquainted with its terrible secrets? 
Because it has no religion. You can raise a country's intellect 
only by raising its people's conscience. The bulwarks and the 
battlements of a land are not soldiers, nor sailors, nor creed, nor 
politics ; it is righteousness that exalteth a nation, and sin that is 
the ruin of any people. 

But we have another lesson to learn from this : if all the move- 
ments of society are thus the executors of the purposes of God, 
it becomes the Christian to study what is going on around him, 
as well as what is written in the Bible. Christians are apt to 
exclude themselves from society, and to be ignorant of it j to be 
acquainted with the Bible, which is their greatest glory, but to be 



84 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

criminally and injuriously ignorant of all that is around them 
fulfilling the Bible, which is the neglect of their plainest duty. 
It seems to me that at the present moment, when, as I believe, 
the stone cut out without hands is breaking the kingdoms of the 
world into atoms — at this moment, it seems to me, that the first 
study should be the book of grace — the chiefest, deepest, most 
solemn, most prayerful j but the next to that, the study of God's 
providential dealings at the present hour. So that, in my humble 
judgment, the very newspaper at this time is to me of no mean 
importance ; and if you want to see the Bible, which is prophecy, 
reflected in the form of history, just read the foreign correspond- 
ence of the newspapers of every day. We see there the world 
commenting upon what God has written ; and God, in his pro- 
vidential history, showing us the truth of his ancient and inspired 
prophecy. But do not read the newspaper to the neglect of the 
Bible ; read the Bible first and last, and chiefest ; and use the 
newspapers only as you would use any one fact in the past or 
present, as the evidence that God speaks in the Bible, and that 
God now acts in the world. The Bible is the key that unlocks 
all : it is the torch carried into the otherwise dark chambers of 
history, showing us order in apparent confusion ; revealing har- 
mony in seemed discord; unity, design, in what is otherwise 
inexplicable. Thus it becomes the bright chart that helps us to 
tread with certainty the windings of the labyrinth ; and to rise 
from the chaos in which men plunge and speculate, to the light 
in which God is, and lives for ever. 

All around, I add, is changing; but the word of God lives and 
abides for ever. Thrones and dynasties and kings are passing 
away, but God's word remains; and in the midst of all the vicis- 
situdes and changes that are constantly occurring around us, how 
delightful to know that there are added day by day to the church 
of the living God such as shall be saved. I believe that, day by 
day, religion is becoming more felt and appreciated. I believe 
too, what you know, that empires may be shattered — sceptres 
broken — thrones convulsed — but that little thing, in the world's 
eye so weak, according to the world's calculation so perishing, 
the company of God's faithful people, may seem buried in the 
waves like the ark of old, but it is only to rise with the next bil* 



THE SILVER AND BRASS EMPIRES. 85 

low nearer to the skies. "I give unto them/' says our Lord, 
"eternal life, and none shall be able to pluck them out of my 
hand." Nothing shall separate a living Christian from the liv- 
ing God; neither life, nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, 
nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature. Bre- 
thren, are we such Christians ? are we transformed by the Spirit in 
the renewing of our hearts? No discussion on the fulfilment of 
prophecy must ever divert, but on the contrary, should draw our 
minds to the consideration of our personal safety in the sight of 
God. Are we reposing on the only fixture, the Hock of ages? 
Are we hiding ourselves within the everlasting arms, — and when 
the last storm shall come, and the last thunder shall roar, and the 
last fires shall blaze, are we conscious that we shall be found rest- 
ing on the rock that shall never fail ? Are we born again ? Are 
we in the world and of the world? or are we in the true church, 
and of the true church, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ? 
If we are, then we can stand and gaze upon the bright panorama 
that spreads before us, disclosing God in history, fulfilling God in 
prophecy; knowing that all things only work together for good 
to them that love God, and hasten that bright and blessed epoch, 
when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of 
our God, and all the people shall praise him; and the earth shall 
yield her increase, and God, even our God shall bless us. Amen. 



86 



LECTURE VII. 



THE MYSTIC STONE SMITING THE IMAGE. 

" Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the 
image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. 
Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to 
pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors; and 
the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them : and the stone 
that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. 
And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potter's clay, and part of 
iron, the kingdom shall be divided ; but there shall be in it of the strength of 
the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay. And as the 
toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be 
partly strong, and partly broken. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with 
miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men : but they shall 
not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. And in the 
days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall 
never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it 
shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for 
ever. Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain 
without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the sil- 
ver, and the gold ; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come 
to pass hereafter : and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof 
sure." — Daniel ii. 34, 35, 41-45. 

I HAVE explained the origin of the remarkable symbols, the 
last of which in this chapter I have this evening read. A great 
and supernatural image was made to pass before the eyes of Ne- 
buchadnezzar the king, intended to presignify great events des- 
tined in the purposes of God to evolve in the latter days. That 
symbol none of the soothsayers of Babylon could interpret. What 
God reveals, God's people alone will clearly comprehend; and 
what God makes known by mysterious signs, God's own commis- 
sioned interpreter is able clearly to explain. 

The head, we are told, was made of gold, and was declared ex- 
pressly by Daniel to be the Babylonian monarchy. That head of 



THE MYSTIC STONE SMITING THE IMAGE. 87 

gold, or Babylonian kingdom, passes away, as I have showed you 
by facts drawn from history, and another kingdom forthwith oc- 
cupies its place : the silver breast, with the silver arms, denoting 
the conjunct or combined kingdom of the Medo-Persians, which 
instantly succeeded the kingdom of Babylon on its overthrow and 
subjugation by Cyrus, after whose victory its golden glory left 
scarce a rack behind. We then read of a third kingdom — not 
guessed by man to be so; but expressly explained by Daniel to 
succeed the second on its ruin and decay. "His belly and his 
thighs of brass. " This kingdom, I showed you, denotes — the 
only possible kingdom it can be applied to — the Grseco-Macedo- 
nian, called frequently, as those acquainted with classic literature 
are aware, "the brazen-coated Greeks" — the Greeks who wore 
coats and helmets of mail and brass. This kingdom may be said 
to have been founded by Philip, who warred so successfully with 
the Greeks, and against whom the thunders and lightnings of 
Demosthenes were so vividly and so frequently pointed. He 
was succeeded by his son Alexander — Alexander the Great — 
who, I need not tell any one acquainted with the elements of 
schoolboy literature, swept the whole known world — subjugated 
every kingdom, almost the instant he touched it, by his victo- 
rious phalanxes; and at last, when he had subdued the whole 
world, he sat down and wept, because there was no more world 
to conquer. His kingdom passed away after it had fulfilled its 
mission, and was succeeded by the mightier, more powerful, iron 
kingdom of the Romans; whose history, rise, and progress, are 
described by heathen writers, and even by Gibbon, in a manner 
eminently confirmatory of the predictions of Daniel, as I have 
already endeavoured to delineate in the former lecture. This 
fourth empire has been called again and again "the iron em- 
pire." The crown or diadem of its monarchs was iron; the 
"iron sway" was the name that poets gave to it; and when Gib- 
bon, the skeptic historian, wished to describe its rise, its splen- 
dour, and its might, he could find no symbol so expressive of its 
actual and historical nature as the very imagery used by Daniel, 
which he consciously or unconsciously quoted, in order thereby 
to denote and delineate its unrivalled greatness, strength, and 
progress. 



88 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

I stated that the Roman empire* occupies a space larger than 
the rest, because the destiny of the people of God is very much 
interwoven and mixed up with it. I have showed you (and this 
is one great point I ask all to recollect) that there can be found 
no four successive empires in the world, or in the history of man- 
kind, possessed of universal sovereignty, except the four I have 
mentioned. Now, I ask you, is it possible, if Daniel were a mere 
guesser — a mere sagacious guesser of future possibilities — is it 
probable that he could have guessed so exactly what has taken 
place, and what all history attests ? Many are found who ask for 
miracles. Here is a miracle fresh and patent to all. Here is a 
delineation minutely given six hundred years before the advent 
of Christ ; and kings mount their thrones to fulfil it ; and the 
Roman legion and the Macedonian phalanx march to victory, in 
order to make its most microscopic lines appear true. Empire 
succeeds to empire, army destroys army, nation follows in the rear 
of nation, as if each saw the chart plainly delineated, and felt 
that each had a divine commission to go forth, verbatim et litera- 
tim, to fulfil it. Is not this prophecy written by the finger of 
God ? Is not all history the evidence of its inspiration ? Is not 
this a miracle that supersedes the necessity of mere manifestations 
of power, however impressive, and proclaims with a voice irresisti- 
ble and full of argument, " Thy word, God, is truth V' 

In this lecture I proceed to show the division of the last king- 
dom, into what are called " the toes of the feet" of this image. 
The legs, from the knee, were represented as made of solid iron; 
the feet were composed of iron and clay ; and there were the five 
toes upon the one foot and the five upon the other, constituting 
thereby ten. But we should not conjecture it was ten, were it 
not that subsequent visions in the Book of Daniel, to which I 
hope to be able to direct your attention, plainly state it ; and no 
less clear statements in the Book of Revelation indicate the same 
number of kingdoms. "We read of the " beast that was, and is 

* In searching Chrysostom for another quotation, I found, in his fourth 
Homily, on 2 Thess. ii. 5, the following words : — "Skntsp yap al rrpd tovtov KareKv^n- 
aav (jOffikeiai, olov >'/ M>7Ja)i/ vno t&v Baj3v\o}viu>v, 1) ISaflvXwviwv vno Htpcoyv, fj Uepawv vno 
teaKeSovwv, f) MaxeSovcov vno Pui/y.aicov ovtg> kcu avrii vno tov ' Avrixpio-rov , K&Ktivos vno 
tov XpuiTov Kal ovkzti Kadi^d. — Vol. xi. 613. Paris, 1838. 



THE MYSTIC STONE SMITING THE IMAGE. 89 

not." " And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, 
which have received no kingdom as yet." The words "king" 
and " kingdom" are used convertibly in Daniel. Mr. Birks, who 
has written most ably and eloquently upon this book, says the ex- 
pression " kingdom" is used when it is the subject of change or 
division, and that it is called a king when it goes forth conquering 
and deciding the destinies of a nation. Accordingly we read in the 
44th verse, "In the days of these kings;" but in the previous 
passage it is said, " these kingdoms." Again, of the king of 
Babylon it is said, " Thou art that head of gold •" meaning, 
" thy kingdom is represented by it." The two words, therefore, 
are used convertibly. 

Now it is said that this last kingdom, which we have shown, I 
think irresistibly, to be the Roman empire, was to be split into 
ten divisions ) or, if the wild beast from the abyss, seen by John 
in Patmos, be taken, it was to have ten horns ; or, if Daniel's 
subsequent visions be had recourse to, (which we shall come to 
by-and-by,) it was to be tenfold. We have the fact clearly pre- 
dicted, that it was to be split or divided into ten kingdoms. Here 
is a broad prediction, of which palpable facts can alone be re- 
garded as the fulfilment. Is it then matter of historic fact, as it 
is matter of prophetic declaration, that this Roman empire has 
been divided into ten kingdoms at its fall or decline ? That this 
has been so, every historian will tell you. G-ibbon speaks of the 
ten kingdoms : Muller, the German historian, alludes to the ten 
kingdoms of the Roman empire j and I might quote from histo- 
rians innumerable, all speaking of this tenfold division, not as a 
prophetic announcement, but as an historical and actual fact. 

That this was so, I will show by giving these ten kingdoms as 
they have appeared in successive centuries. I need not enter into 
historical details, for they would be inappropriate here — all that 
devolves upon me is to show you the fulfilment of the prophecies 
of God ; and the discourse that proves to you that what God in- 
spired in prophecy has been fulfilled in history, is a discourse that 
contributes at least a drop to that mighty, deepening, widening 
current which carries, day by day, accumulating evidence of the 
inspiration and heaven-descended origin of God's blessed book. 

In the year 532 after the birth of Christ — that is, rather more 

8* 



90 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

than a thousand years after the prophecy was uttered — we find 
the Roman empire, if I may use the expression, on its last legs ; 
and these last legs divided into the following ten toes, or king- 
doms : — the Bavarians, the Anglo-Saxons, the Allenian-Franks, 
the Burgundian-Franks, the Visi-Groths, the Suevi-Franks, the 
Vandals, Ostro-Groths, and Lombards. The next or last three, as 
if to fulfil the significance of another vision of Daniel, were de- 
voured by the " little horn," (which we shall afterward speak of,) 
or were absorbed by the Roman pope, and constitute at this mo- 
ment what are called " the three estates of the Church." Then, 
in the year 900, there was the following division : Bavaria, Ger- 
many, Burgundy, France, Aragon, Castile, Lower Italy, and Rome, 
comprehending the three estates of the Church — the Vandals, 
Ostro-Groths, and Lombards. In the year 1214, the division was : 
Bavaria, Germany, Upper Italy, France, Portugal, Spain, Naples, 
and Rome with its three estates, represented by the pope's triple 
crown, subject to the jurisdiction of the Church, and constituting 
its property. Then we come to 1700, when we find Bavaria, 
Austria, Savoy, France, Spain, Portugal, Naples, and Rome with 
its three estates, making altogether ten kingdoms, into which the 
Roman empire was at last divided. 

As you are aware, there is sometimes, in reading history, a dif- 
ficulty in distinguishing the one kingdom from the other; but, 
mark you, that very difficulty only makes the fulfilment of pro- 
phecy more clear, because the assertion of the seer is, that they shall 
attempt to intermingle with the seed of men, but that they should 
not succeed in being consolidated into one universal empire, as 
they were under Nebuchadnezzar, under Cyrus, under Alexander, 
or under the Roman Caesars ; that with all their intermingling, 
as the sea interlocks with the land, the one losing and the other 
gaining a bit, the ten kingdoms should cast up at the end of every 
century, more or less separate, and should last till the end — when 
they should be smitten into fragments by a " stone cut out with- 
out hands." I ask you to notice this startling fact. If you will 
read any history of Europe, or if you will study the maps show- 
ing this division — maps which I hope one day to exhibit in my 
school-room, as I have exhibited others, if I can only get them 
prepared on a large enough scale — you will find that in each cen- 



THE MYSTIC STONE SMITING THE IMAGE. 91 

tury these ten kingdoms have always cast up, have always turned 
out of each revolution ; and every attempt to make them fewer, 
or to make them one, has signally and historically failed. 

The expression, " They shall mingle themselves with the seed 
of men," simply means, that they should try by human alliances 
to intermingle. Napoleon, for instance, connected himself by 
marriage with Austria. One would have supposed that this would 
surely have brought about the consolidation of the two empires ; 
but it did not do so. Charlemagne subdued G-ermany, Saxony, 
Spain, and Italy ; but his conquests were temporary : he had no 
sooner turned his back upon the country he conquered, than it 
rose and reasserted its independence. Louis XIV., whose bril- 
liant, but sensual and profligate reign may be known to many of 
you, made the same experiment. Napoleon, with his iron crown, 
his formidable sword, and his devastating battalions, swept 
through Europe, reached Africa, visited even Palestine itself, or 
at least Syria ; till at last, in his desperate effort to consolidate 
all the nations of Europe, Asia, and Africa under his sway, he 
was all but paralyzed in his infatuated ambition, amid the snows 
of Russia • and finally, in that great victory in which our country 
signalized itself with glory, because it was a contribution to the 
peace of Europe and the well-being of mankind, he was finally 
smitten down. His attempt showed, as did the attempts of all 
that preceded him, that the inner powers of repulsion in the ten 
kingdoms were stronger than the outer compression of Napoleon's, 
or Charlemagne's, or Louis's sword. We have thus, then, the ten 
kingdoms always coming up, notwithstanding the efforts of suc- 
cessive despots, conquerors, and heroes to consolidate them. We 
have the failure of each hero written in blood, and stereotyped 
upon the page of Europe; in spite of man's great forces, God's 
true word stands still, fulfilled to the very letter. Did Daniel 
guess all this ? Who is the more credulous — the man who says 
a Jewish captive guessed the history of Europe, or he that says a 
Jewish prophet predicted it by the inspiration of God ? 

We read, after this division of the empire, that il a stone cut 
out without hands" was to smite " the image upon its feet, that 
were of iron and clay." Then it is stated that " in the days of 
these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall 



92 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

never be destroyed." " Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone 
was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in 
pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold ;" so 
will it be with the setting up of this great kingdom which shall 
never be destroyed. 

What the stone cut out without hands is, there can be scarcely a 
doubt in the mind of any Christian. The apostle Peter tells us, 
" To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of 
men, but chosen of Grod, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, 
are built up a spiritual house." In his birth there was not the 
least of human agency ; in his resurrection there was none. In 
Christ, peculiarly and alone — and only of him can it be said so — 
there is realized and verified the symbol of a living stone, "cut 
out without hands." 

But while this may be true, that Christ here personally is to be 
the Great Destroyer of the nations, it may be no less true that his 
people instrumen tally are to play a part in it. I cannot believe 
that the action of the " stone cut out without hands" upon the ten 
kingdoms was the birth of Christ, and the gradual spread of his 
empire, because it does not say that a power was to be introduced 
into the Roman empire that should spread like leaven, though that 
was true \ but it is here asserted that a stone was to strike the toes 
of the image in its last stage, and shatter it to pieces. Now the 
progress of the gospel, as a converting power, is gradual, slow, 
and invisible ; but the action of the stone, as here described, is 
not that of a converting power, but of a destroying and annihi- 
lating power. Therefore it is represented as smiting the ten king- 
doms, or the toes of the image, and breaking them in pieces, so 
that they are scattered like chaff upon the threshing-floor of 
summer. 

It is believed by many, and I am one of those who incline to 
that belief, that the mystic stone at this moment has begun to 
smite the ten kingdoms of the Roman empire. And I am sure 
that no one who looks around him upon Europe, and reads its 
mysterious and its melancholy history — no one who is at this 
moment conversant with what is doing in France, where the vol- 
cano is smothered, but any thing but extinguished \ or with what 
is now passing in Italy, where the whole soil rocks, and is con- 



THE MYSTIC STONE SMITING THE IMAGE. 93 

vulsed, as if by the heaving of some mighty, dread, subterranean 
elements, can doubt that if the stone be not smiting at this mo- 
ment, preparatory to the final destruction of the kingdoms of 
Europe, there is that going on which is the likest possible to it. 
Bavaria, Austria, Savoy, France, Spain, Portugal, Naples, the 
three kingdoms of the pope, or, as they are called, " the three 
estates of the Church" — the Vandals, Ostro-Goths, and Lombards 
— are all at this moment convulsed, each to its very centre ; 
flying from each other, as if by an irresistible centrifugal force; 
breaking to pieces, as if under the blows of some mysterious 
stone : Hungary flying off from Austria, as if a hammer smote 
it and chipped it off; Sicily dashed off from Naples; the pope's 
" three estates" rent, torn, agitated, convulsed; Ireland feeling 
also the blows, as if it belonged to the ten kingdoms, whose 
popish characteristics were to remain to the end, and struggling 
— we trust, in vain — to be severed from the nation that is its 
best, and its greatest, though it has been in past times its guilty 
and its offending friend. Does not all this look as if the stone 
had begun to smite the ten toes of the kingdoms of the earth ? 
And if it be so, how solemn is the moment we occupy ! standing 
on the eve of startling events; hearing thundering through the 
sky the reverberation of falling thrones, and exploding dynasties 
— sharing, indeed, a momentary lull, but, like the lull at sea 
which the sailor knows between the hurricanes, only preparatory 
to the rending elements that are instantly and terribly to succeed. 
Need I tell you that almost all men who have looked abroad 
upon the subject are full of these thoughts? You cannot read 
the foreign communications of any of our newspapers without 
seeing it ; you cannot converse with any man acquainted with the 
state of Europe who does not tremble, if he has any stake in it, 
for fear of the things that are coming upon the earth. There is 
an ancient German prophecy, of which you may have heard, that 
can be traced half a century back ; I do not say it is inspired — 
far from it — because I have no evidence that it is so — but it was 
certainly a strange guess for the Germans to make so long ago : 
" I would not be a king in 1848 ; I would not be a soldier in 
1849 ; I would not be a grave-digger in 1850 ; I will be any 
thing you please in 1851." This may be but a rough conjecture ; 



94 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

but how significant is, " I would not be a king in 1848 !" How 
striking is, " I would not be a soldier in 1849 !" And whether 
"I would not be a grave-digger in 1850" is to be the foretoken 
of a yet more desolating scourge than any of those through which, 
by God's mercy, we have passed, God only knows. This, how- 
ever, we know — we are guilty. This we know — we ought now, 
in the moment of respite, both as affects the physical, and still 
more, the spiritual condition of our fellow-men, to lend a help- 
ing hand, and that right speedily. A pious person, writing from 
the continent, makes this statement : " Much that has come be- 
fore us of late shows how rapidly things are classified — how all 
men are ranging themselves under their respective banners — all 
watching for the morning, the one for the Lord, and the other for 
Lucifer." While some are looking for Christ, the pantheists of 
Germany are looking for what they call " the coming man," the 
incarnation or personation of intellect, a human God. The beauty 
of the gospel is, that God was made man ; the error of panthe- 
ism is, that man is believed to be made God. The former was 
real ; the latter is a mockery. 

I have shown you, then, kingdom rushing from kingdom ; one 
detached from another, and all left unsettled. If you were to 
look into churches, you would see the same thing; fragments 
Hying off from one church ; larger fragments from another church ; 
and the parties standing by, and seeming to enjoy the rending, 
themselves being rent in turn. This is the very age of breaking 
up — the age of crushing, of destroying, of rending — the age, in 
short, of the " stone" smiting the ten toes, and grinding to pow- 
der the kingdoms of this world. 

What would also confirm that which I have now been stating 
is, that it seems, from the language employed, to synchronize 
with the description of the seventh vial given by John. " The 
seventh angel poured his vial into the air." That I have already 
explained to you. You have the air physically and morally 
tainted. I told you in Exeter Hall in 1817, before the vial was 
poured out, that the effects would be, whenever it came, if the , 
principle of interpretation I thought to be true was correct, a 
taint of the air with a physical or pestilential taint, and the de- 
terioration of public opinion, sentiment, and belief, by deadly 



THE MYSTIC STONE SMITING THE IMAGE. 95 

and destructive principles. u And there came a great voice out 
of the temple of heaven from the throne, saying, It is done." 
Then, what takes plaee ? " There were voices" — who has not 
heard the voices that have been sounding over Europe for the last 
three years, in all shapes and forms ? — " and thunders and light- 
nings ; and there was a great earthquake." As I told you, every 
newspaper said, that 1848 was the year of earthquakes. An 
earthquake shook all the ten kingdoms till they reeled and totter- 
ed, as if about to issue in their final destruction. "And the 
great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the na- 
tions fell ; and great Babylon came iu remembrance before G-od" 
— the popedom is now being visited and scourged, as the begin- 
ning of its utter and thorough destruction. If this, then, syn- 
chronizes with the seventh vial, you have still more confirmatory 
evidence — or rather, other language illustrative, still more forci- 
bly, by its symbols, of the period at which we are now arrived. 

If it synchronizes with the seventh vial, it would also syn- 
chronize with what our blessed Lord has told us in Matthew, 
(this is before the coming of Christ:) " Immediately after the 
tribulation of those days shall the sun" (used to denote imperial 
power) "be darkened, and the moon" (either a lesser civil power, 
or the ecclesiastical) " shall not give her light, and the stars" (or 
rulers in the church) " shall fall from heaven, and the powers of 
the heaven shall be shaken : and then shall appear the sign of 
the Son of man in heaven : and then shall all the tribes of the 
earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the 
clouds of heaven with power and great glory." 

And if it synchronizes with this, it will also synchronize with 
other predictions in the 37th and 38th chapters of Ezekiel: 
u Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a 
cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many peo- 
ple with thee." There is a series of predictions in these chap- 
ters of Ezekiel revealing judgments that were to take place in 
the latter days — the restoration of the Jews, and glory of the 
Gentiles — which you can read at your leisure. 

It appears, then, that just before the advent of the Lord, 
there is to be the vial poured into the air, the thunder, the 
lightning, the great earthquake, and Babylon, the Romish apos- 



96 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

tasy, coming into remembrance before God; — secondly, to use 
the words of our Lord, the sun and moon and stars darkening, 
the heavens covered as with a sackcloth, and men's hearts fail- 
ing them for fear of the things that are coming upon the earth; 
and thirdly — to quote the imagery of Daniel — that the great 
stone (beyond all dispute, the Saviour) cut out without hands, is 
to smite the image, and break it in pieces, till it becomes like 
the chaff of the summer threshing-floor, swept to and fro by the 
wind, and carried away, so that no place should be ultimately 
found for it; and this stone, despised and rejected of men, whom 
men would not have as their foundation, becomes a great moun- 
tain, and fills the whole earth. Every one who looks abroad, as 
I have told you, sees what I may call the presumptive evidence 
of these things. You have only to look at the nations of Eu- 
rope to see that they want the great cohesive element .of living, 
scriptural religion. No society can stand unless it be pervaded 
and knit together by the cement of a living Christianity. The 
strength of Britain is in the ratio of the depth of Britain's 
Christianity. The stability of our throne rests upon the Chris- 
tianity of our population. Never let it be forgotten, that the 
despised Scripture reader, and humble city missionary, in the 
dens and alleys, and subterranean cellars of this great metropolis, 
are contributing (the great men of the world may not see it, but 
Christian men feel it) to the stability of our most gracious 
queen's throne, to the splendour of her crown, and to the glory 
and greatness of this great empire. It is by religion that a na- 
tion stands; and in the absence of it a hundred thousand bayo- 
nets are not stronger than a hundred thousand straws — as Louis 
Philippe, in his own experience, can tell- you; and with that reli- 
gion in a nation's heart, it needs few battalions round the throne, 
or soldiers to maintain and to defend it. There is a defence in 
the midst of us mightier than all — the glory of the Lord, our 
refuge and our strength, and our present help in time of trouble. 
But with the nations of the earth, every one sees that there is 
no chance of their keeping together. All their constitutions are 
carnal. They are merely being patched up; the evil day is, as 
it were, staved off. Who does not see, who has the least know- 
ledge of what is going on, that the kingdoms of Europe — the 



THE MYSTIC STONE SMITING THE IMAGE. 97 

ten kingdoms — are kept down and quieted purely by manage- 
ment ? Like an old ruin, they are propped up ; like a diseased 
body, they are kept in life by medicine; but the props will fall; 
the medicine will lose its power; and then will come, as Metter- 
nich prophesied, " the deluge, desolation, destruction, ruin." 

Seeing, then, that the gold and the silver, and the brass, and 
the iron and clay — all these things must be dissolved — Babylon, 
Medo-Persia, Macedonia, Greece, the Roman Empire, and the 
ten kingdoms — let me ask this question of you — a question that 
has been asked for 1800 years — " What manner of persons 
ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for, 
and hasting unto the coming of the day of Grod, wherein the 
heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall 
melt with fervent heat?" Reading the handwriting of doom 
upon the walls of palaces, and upon the face of thrones; hear- 
ing the successive crashes of nations booming over sea and land, 
as if they were the trumps of judgment, spared as we are, in a 
momentary lull when all seems quiet, only that the forces may 
muster for the more terrific havoc that is to come; standing on a 
part of the earth toward which earthquakes seem to roll, and yet, 
by a divine protection, seem successively to be repelled; — how 
earnestly should we examine ourselves, — how should we think 
of our state before Grod, — how should we try to anticipate, from 
the knowledge of our hearts, as reflected from Grod's Holy Word, 
where we shall stand when the last crash shall come, and the 
Son of man, coming in the clouds of heaven, shall cover the sky 
with an unearthly splendour, and all men shall, for one brief 
period, enjoy a dreadful, suspensive, trembling pause, anxious to 
know, " shall we stand at the right hand or at the left hand of 
the Judge?" " Seeing all these things shall be dissolved, what 
manner of persons ought ye to.be?" 

But does not a retrospect of this image, which represented to 
Daniel all the kingdoms of the world, tell us how to estimate 
these kingdoms? Riches — what are they? Fragments of the 
golden head; mere filings of the silver breast and of the silver 
arms ; possessed, indeed, of currency below, but destitute of any 
currency where Christ and our inheritance are. And what, after 
all, is earthly rank? It is merely a foothold upon the iron legs; 



98 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

or, if a higher rank, upon the thighs of brass; or, if a higher 
still, upon the silver arm; and the highest rank in the land is 
merely seated on the golden head. And when we know that the 
golden head, and silver arm, and belly of brass, and legs of iron, 
and toes of clay, shall be all smashed to pieces by that Stone, scat- 
tered like chaff upon the summer threshing-floor, oh ! how pale 
does all earthly rank become — how poor does all worldly gran- 
deur appear — how little worthy of a people's love — how little en- 
titled to a nation's anxiety ! What a call to us to think of the 
"unsearchable riches" that moth cannot corrupt — to think of the 
"honour that cometh from God" — to think, and secure while 
we think of a foothold, not upon the leg of iron, nor belly of 
brass, nor arm of silver, nor head of gold, but a foothold on the 
Rock of ages, which shall become one day "a great mountain," 
and shall "fill the whole earth." Blessed hope! brilliant pros- 
pect ! As it was told by David, in the 72d Psalm, " His name 
shall endure for ever:" it shall last like the sun. The names of 
Calvin, of Luther, of Knox, of Wesley, and Whitefield, and 
other names that may be musical to our ears, shall all be hushed, 
and the name of Christ alone shall endure audible for ever. All 
nations shall bless him, and all nations shall be blessed in him; 
and when that Stone has been turned into this great mountain, 
and when the whole earth shall be covered by that mountain, 
then shall be the era of the triumph of the catholic, or the uni- 
versal, and the true church; that mountain -brow basking in per- 
petual sunshine; and around that mighty mountain that fills the 
whole earth shall be successive belts, like bright zones, of ador- 
ing and worshipping companies, that say and sing, "'Unto him 
that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and 
hath made us kings and priests unto our Grod; to him be glory for 
ever and ever." Grlorious structure, beautiful and holy home, 
sublime cathedral, happy rest, for the holy and happy people of 
G-od ! No hospitals will be there, for there shall be no sick ; no 
graves shall be dug in it, for death shall be destroyed; no sor- 
row, nor sighing nor tears; but the church catholic, apostolic, 
holy, blessed, for ever and ever, — Christ their King, and none 
known by any other name than Christians, the anointed subjects 
of the great King. 



THE MYSTIC STONE SMITING THE IMAGE. 99 

My dear friends, some men quarrel with the study of prophe- 
cy. I have learned more since I began to study it thoroughly 
than ever I learned before. I do not say that these simple 
truths are denied by ministers of the gospel, but certainly they 
are not studied. They say, "We do not lite to study these sub- 
jects/ - ' They even boast of their good sense in skipping the 
Book of Daniel and the Apocalypse. Alas ! for such unprotestant 
preachers. Whatever God has written, it is surely worth our 
trouble to study; and if we commit an error here and there, 
charity will forgive it, and God will forgive it for the sake of the 
great truths that are beside it. This I have learned ever since I 
studied these truths : I have learned less and less to value those 
distinctions of church and dissent, of episcopacy and independ- 
ency and presbytery; and to feel more and more their utter 
insignificance in comparison with that glory that streams from 
the better land, and shows me that, in the sight of God, in the 
cycle of eternity, there are but two classes — the lost, in hell, who 
have clung to Antichrist, and the saved, in heaven, with whom 
Christ has been all and in all. 

The future ! cruel were the power 

Whose doom would tear thee from my heart ; 

Thou sweetener of the present hour, 
We cannot — no — we will not part ! 

Then haste thee, Time — 'tis kindness all, 

That speeds thy winged feet so fast 
Thy pleasures stay not till they pall ; 

And all thy pains are quickly past. 

Thou fliest and bear'st away our woes ; 

And as tho shadowy trains depart, 
The memory of sorrow grows 

A lighter burden on the heart. 



100 



LECTURE VIII. 

THE KINGDOM OE GOD. 

" Thou, king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose 
brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. 
This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly 
and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. 
Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the 
image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then 
was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces to- 
gether, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors; and the 
wind carried them away, that no place was found for them : and the stone that 
smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. This is 
the dream ; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king. Thou, 
king, art a king of kings : for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, 
power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, 
the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine 
hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold. 
And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third 
kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth. And the fourth 
kingdom shall be strong as iron : forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and 
subdueth all things : and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in 
pieces and bruise. And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potter's 
clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of 
the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry 
clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the 
kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken. And whereas thou sawest 
iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men : 
but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay. 
And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, 
which shall never be destroyed : and the kingdom shall not be left to other peo- 
ple, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall 
stand for ever." — Daniel ii. 31-44. 

Time would fail me were I to attempt to recapitulate what I 
have preached on the portion of Scripture which I have now read. 
It will be sufficient to observe, that I showed that the head of 
gold was the Babylonian kingdom — the first supreme and univer- 
sal sovereignty that then existed upon earth; that the breast and 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 101 

arms of silver we could have no difficulty in defining to be the 
Medo-Persian kingdom — the breast denoting its monarch, and 
the two arms, Media and Persia, united in him, and constituting 
one kingdom; that the belly and thighs of brass represented the 
next succeeding universal kingdom, the Grseco-Macedonians, or 
the Macedonian Greeks, known in classic story as the "brass- 
covered Greeks," who, first under Philip, and next, and com- 
pletely, under his son Alexander, swept the earth, and subdued 
every kingdom under their powerful sceptre. I also showed, by 
irresistible proofs drawn from Gibbon, and from historians whose 
testimony in this matter must be regarded as dispassionate, that 
the fourth kingdom, the fourth in succession, and the only suc- 
ceeding kingdom that had absolute and universal sovereignty, 
was the iron kingdom of Rome, or the Roman empire. Now, 
this is not mere conjecture. I ask you to point out to me, in 
past history, any other four successive kingdoms each of which 
was in its day mistress of the globe, as far as the globe was then 
known. There have been but four universal empires — the four 
I have stated — each sovereign and supreme in its sway, and each 
displaced by its successor. The last of these, the Roman em- 
pire, which was of iron, subdued and ground to pieces all the 
kingdoms that preceded it. I showed you also, by comparisons 
with the Book of Revelation, and subsequent passages in the 
prophecy of Daniel, to which I will refer you, that, as the two 
feet of the image were divided into ten toes, the Roman empire 
might be expected, if the prophecy were true, to be divided into 
ten kingdoms. If you will open any history of any school or 
creed, you will find it stated that the Roman empire was thus 
divided into ten kingdoms in the fourth or fifth century; this is 
matter of universal admission. Strange enough, ever since that 
division took place — now some fourteen hundred years ago — the 
ten kingdoms which I specified by name, are seen, in every cen- 
tury, more or less clearly to cast up. Were they to cast up the 
same in limits and geographical extent in every century, prophe- 
cy would not be fulfilled; because the prediction is that they 
would try to "mingle with the seed of men;" that is, there 
should be efforts made to compress, to consolidate, to jumble 
them; in other words, destroy — though not intentionally — God's 



102 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

prediction, and make them cease to be what God has declared 
they long shall be — numerically and clearly ten. Now, it is a 
fact, that ever since the division into ten, successive rulers have 
tried to amalgamate them into one great universal empire; and 
in each instance they have found that the word of the Almighty 
was stronger than the sword of Caesar, of Charlemagne, or of Na- 
poleon, or of any other ambitious prince or soldier that made the 
experiment. Again and again marriages have been made among 
the ten kings. The most powerful effort, and the nearest to suc- 
cessful, was made by Napoleon, when he allied himself to the 
house of Austria. He controlled the most gallant, the bravest, 
the most active nation on the continent of Europe. Europe 
seemed to lie prostrate at his feet, ready to accept his sovereign- 
ty; the cup of universal empire was almost at his lips; but God 
had destined it otherwise, and expressly said it should be other- 
wise, 600 years before the birth of Christ, and more than 2000 
years before Napoleon was born. The waters of the Borodino 
engulphed his invincible battalions, and the snows of Russia be- 
came winding-sheets to half his army, and the bones of the rest, 
bleaching or buried on the plains of Waterloo, tell how feeble is 
the might of man, and how lasting is the truth of God. 

But we are told that in the time of these ten kingdoms, into 
which the Roman empire was to be divided, the God of heaven 
should set up a kingdom which should never be destroyed. Now, 
this cannot be the commencement of Christianity eighteen hun- 
dred 3^ears ago, because it is said that God would set up this king-, 
dom subsequent to the division of the empire into ten kingdoms; 
assuredly he will yet set up this kingdom in all its grandeur, 
completeness, and sovereignty; and between the ruin of the ten 
kingdoms of the Roman empire and the culminating glory of the 
Christian kingdom there shall be nothing intervening. This last 
and universal sovereignty of the Christian kingdom was to be the 
result of another fact: that a "stone cut out without hands" 
(which I showed by comparison to be the Lord Jesus) was, not 
gradually to leaven, but suddenly to smite the ten kingdoms. You 
will notice that the stone, which was Christ, ( a to whom coming, 
as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen and 
precious,") was to smite the image in its tenfold division state. 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 103 

It was not to smite it in the time of its golden head, nor in the 
time of its silver breast, nor in the time of its brass thighs, nor 
in the time of its iron limbs ; but when the iron limbs should be 
divided into ten toes, partly clay and partly iron. This stone was 
suddenly to fall upon the ten kingdoms, and to split them into 
atoms, and scatter them as chaff is driven and scattered upon the 
summer threshing-floor. I showed you, by two or three simple 
facts, that it seems as if the blows of that stone were at this mo- 
ment reverberating throughout the continent of Europe. Who 
can fail to see kingdom after kingdom — without any explanation 
of the why — without any preconcerted scheme, or plan, or con- 
spiracy, that will account for the result — suddenly broken to 
atoms ? And if great statesmen are to be believed, whose saga- 
city is generally the nearest thing to prophecy, never was the 
continent of Europe at this moment in a more unsettled state. 
The stone seemed first to have smitten France ; and left that mo- 
narch, who fell asleep with a hundred thousand bayonets bristling 
around him, a refugee and an exile on the rise of to-morrow's sun. 
The stone then struck Austria; and its monarch was an exile 
among the Swiss. It next struck Germany; and even that giant 
empire reeled and staggered under the' blow. The stone then 
struck Italy; the pope was driven from his throne; and the 
"three horns" that belonged to him — "the three states of the 
Church" — part of the ten — are at this moment substantially 
severed from him. I was told by a Roman refugee, soon after 
this, that the prospect of his ever wielding the temporal sove- 
reignty over that people is remoter at this moment than ever. 
And, as if the very elements were sustaining men in their efforts 
to destroy him — not the man Pius IX., but the personation, the 
head, the representative of Babylon — we find, that no sooner was 
he settled in his recent place of retirement, than the earthquake 
rocked the soil, and Vesuvius burst out with preternatural fury; 
and the pope himself, who fled from his people a year ago, was 
flying from the burning element;* as if the foretokens of the pre- 

* " That which nothing else has been able to effect, the eruption of Vesuvius 
has effected, the flight, or rather the removal of the pope. It is only, however, 
to the palace on Capo di Monte, where he can enjoy the magnificent scenes now 
being exhibited on Vesuvius without trembling at the dreadful roaring of the 



104 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

dieted downfall of Babylon were accumulating and thickening 
every day. When I read this fact in the papers, it reminded 
me of what Mr. Elliot has shown will be the nature and agent 
of the destruction of Babylon. His belief is — and Scripture 
leads him to this conclusion — that that gigantic despotism, which 
has made slaves of the free and martyrs of the holy, and out of 
which there is only escape for such men as Achilli, when the 
power of our country and that of France are made to tell upon 
the fears of the guardians of its despotism — is to be literally 

mountain, and without fear of being overwhelmed. I hear nothing, however, 
of a more distant flight. Cardinal Dupont is still here, and the steamer, the 
Vauban, which brought him, waits in port. Arrests still continue here, and I 
hear that, last night, a terribly large batch was seized and sent off to prison — 
some say twenty-seven men of birth and respectability. Mr. Brown, an Ame- 
rican, formerly consul at Rome, has been ordered to quit Naples within forty- 
eight hours, whereupon an indignant and angry correspondence has taken place 
between the American charge d'affaires and the Neapolitan government. As 
yet I know not if, or how, it has terminated. 

" I must not forget to inform you of the state of Vesuvius. For a week, we 
haA T e now enjoyed the most splendid eruption which has taken place for many 
years. The ashes have been carried as far, we know, as twenty miles, and, no 
doubt, much farther. The lava descends in two streams upon Ottajano, where 
it has destroyed a palace and much land belonging to a nobleman of that name, 
and another toward Torri deli Annunziata, while the flames and the immense 
masses of rock which are ejected, form, at night, a splendid and terrific spec- 
tacle. The roaring of the mountain on Saturday night last was such as to 
disturb the whole country for miles round, and here in Naples our windows 
shook with every repetition of it, which was unceasing night and day. Im- 
mense crowds, of course, walk over to the other side of the bay to get a nearer 
view; religious processions are moving about, for the intercession of the Ma- 
donna and the saints; and it is said that the pope is to perform some ceremo- 
nial to cause the mountain to stay its ruinous proceedings. I am sorry to add 
that the accidents to those who went over have been very sad. On Saturday 
night a young Pole was struck in the leg by a burning stone, which cut through 
the limb, and he died on the mountain from loss of blood. A young American 
officer was struck in the arm, which hung suspended by a bit of flesh. On his 
arrival in Naples he had lost so much blood that an amputation could not take 
place, and as no reaction has up to this time taken place, it is not expected 
that he can live. A gendarme is also reported killed, and two men who had 
fallen a sacrifice to the eruption were said to have been buried yesterday at 
Portici. Some anxiety has been felt for an Englishman and his wife who had 
not returned from a visit to the mountain; and yet crowds roll on night and 
clay to see this wonderful phenomenon. Prom the neighbourhood of the 
mountain all the inhabitants have fled, and the powder from the magazine at 
Torre has been removed." — Correspondent of the Daily A r eivs. (April, 1850.) 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 105 

burned with fire, and that there are volcanic elements enough in 
Italy, not only to account for, but to lead us to expect, so terrible 
and so consuming a catastrophe. We wait : the only concern we 
have in the prospect of her catastrophe is : " Come out of her, my 
people, that ye partake not of her sins, and receive not of her 
plagues." I believe those who hold what are called Tractarian 
views are partaking of the sins of Babylon, and that they will 
perish in her ruin unless they repent. I believe it is the duty of 
every man more and more to protest against the system, and 
whatever be his love to its victims — and that love cannot be too 
intense, and he cannot speak the word of truth in too much love 
— to speak of it as God speaks to it, and himself to take care 
that he share in none of her sins ; and so shall he not suffer any 
of her plagues. 

Having, then, reviewed the whole of my statement on the great 
image, I now proceed to notice the kingdom that is here stated 
to succeed the other kingdoms, to cover the whole earth, and never 
to be moved. This kingdom is composed, first, of principles ; 
next, of persons : both now imperfect, but by-and-by to be made 
perfect in glory. 

First of all, it is composed of principles. The Spirit of God 
says — " The kingdom of God is not meat nor drink, but righte- 
ousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." Here you have this 
kingdom in its essential and constituent principles. Before un- 
folding these, let me first notice its negative aspect. 

" The kingdom of God is not meat nor drink." In other words, 
nothing merely ceremonial constitutes the kingdom of God. The 
ceremonies may be too many, or they may be too few — they may 
be very brilliant, or they may be very bald — they may please the 
senses, or gratify only the intellect : it is of no consequence. 
These things do not form a vital part of the kingdom of God. 
Nothing, in the next place, that is merely ritual constitutes this 
kingdom. "It is not," says the apostle, "meat nor drink." 
There may be rubrics, or there may be none — you may fast, or 
' you may feast — you may kneel at prayer, or you may stand — you 
may kneel at the communion-table, or you may sit — the minister 
may wear a silk gown, or a surplice, or neither -, he may preach 
without notes, or he may preach with them ; these are matters of 



106 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

ceremony evanescent as the clouds; the great truths beyond and 
beneath them are, like the stars, fixed and beautiful for ever. 
This kingdom is not described by any fixed and clearly specified 
ecclesiastical regime. The church may be governed by bishops, 
or it may be governed by presbyters, or it may be governed by 
the people ; it may be episcopal, presbyterial, or congregational ; 
it may be favoured by the state, or it may be free from it ; it may 
be endowed by the state, or supported by the people ; it may be a 
very imperfect church, or the most perfect church of all ; — these 
are matters that may be of less or greater advantage to the king- 
dom, but they are not, of necessity, essentials to the very exist- 
ence of the kingdom ; and if men only felt this more, they would 
labour less to reform the mere externals, and labour more to plant 
in the heart and impress on the people the vital and essential doc- 
trines of the gospel. The true way to get a church perfect is to 
try to have perfect men to compose it. The purity of the govern- 
ment of a church will always be in the direct ratio of the piety 
of the people that constitute that church. If we prayed more 
and quarrelled less, and each in his sphere did the work that 
devolved upon him more heartily, there would be far greater suc- 
cess in promoting the gospel — in vindicating the honour of God 
— in winning souls. Far preferable would this be to any efforts 
to improve the outworks, or to alter its constitution, or to change 
its robes, its ceremonies, and its rites. Never forget that the 
citadel of a church's strength is not outward, but inward Chris- 
tianity. Vital forces are in each individual heart; not in bishop, 
presbytery, or people. Thus, then, no one outward government 
is specified as an essential part of the kingdom of Christ. It is 
not " Lord, Lord," but being Christian ; it is not creeds, or fasts, 
or incense, or genuflexion ; it is not the voluntary system, nor the 
establishment; it is not beads, nor holy water; it is not clipping, 
nor sprinkling ;- it is not kneeling, nor standing ; it is not Geri- 
zim, nor Sinai; "neither on this mountain," nor on that; "the 
kingdom of God is neither meat nor drink," nor ceremony, nor 
form, "but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." 

Let us now look at the positive side of this kingdom, or the 
constituent and normal elements of that kingdom which is to 
supersede all, and rise in beauty and glory when other kingdoms 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD, 107 

have passed away. It is composed, first, of " righteousness." 
What is this righteousness ? It is twofold : there is a righteous- 
ness without us, by which we are justified; and there is a 
righteousness within us, by which we are sanctified. The first is 
the act of God's free grace; the second is the worh of God's 
Holy Spirit. The righteousness by which we are justified is as 
perfect at the moment we believe as it will be when we are 
admitted into heaven ; the righteousness by which we are sancti- 
fied is day by day growing in strength, in influence, in power, 
until grace is lost in glory. The first, or the righteousness by 
which we are justified, is imputed to us; the second, or the 
righteousness by which we are sanctified, is imparted to us. The 
first is our title to heaven ; the second is our fitness for heaven. 
This righteousness, both as imputed and imparted — the act of 
Christ, and the work of the Spirit — is an essential element of that 
kingdom which " is not meat nor drink, but righteousness, peace, 
and joy in the Holy Ghost." 

Another element, we are told, is "peace." " Justified by faith, 
we have peace with God." There is no peace real or lasting, 
except the peace that passeth understanding. Old Mr. Howells 
used to say, "If you see two dogs at peace with each other, it is 
the indirect evidence of the power of the gospel." There would 
be nothing but war, interminable and exterminating, throughout 
all society, but for the direct or indirect influence of the gospel 
of Jesus. When we are justified by faith in the righteousness 
of Jesus, we have then peace : peace with God, for he is our 
father — peace with our conscience, for on it is the reflection of 
that Father's countenance — peace with every man who is a Chris- 
tian, for he is a brother — peace with every man who is not a 
Christian, for he may, by grace, be made a brother : peace, not 
indolence ; not ease, in any respect, but strife — not self-indulg- 
ence, but self-sacrifice — not acquiescence in what is evil, for the 
sake of quiet, but war with what is evil, for the sake of God — 
not a prudential avoiding of quarrels, but the sustained endeavour 
to make all things what grace has made us ; and to feel our peace 
increasing and flowing as a river, in proportion as the gospel of 
grace pervades, and permeates, and leavens all around us. Such 



108 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

is the peace here indicated — peace with God, peace with conscience, 
and peace with one another. 

The third element, we are told, is "joy." It began in right- 
eousness, it proceeds in peace, it culminates in joy. In other 
words, the kingdom of God — that is, Christianity — is one-third 
character and two-thirds privilege. I have often declared, what 
I now repeat, that the gospel was inspired, that Jesus died, that 
the Holy Spirit came down at Pentecost, as much to make you 
and me happy and joyful, as to make you and me righteous and 
holy. Nay, the very first sound in that glorious message is 
" good news." For what is the meaning of the work gospel ? 
" Good news." Instead of shrinking from that gospel, instead 
of looking upon it as something sepulchral and awful, that will 
dissipate all your joys, and dry up all the currents of your 
pleasure, you ought to know that the main elements of the king- 
dom of God are peace and joy. I am sure, if we confess at the 
throne of grace that the gospel has not made us righteous as it 
ought to have done, we ought to confess with equal sorrow that it 
has not made us happy, peaceful, joyful, as it was meant to do. 
If there be any man in this assembly who is not a happy man, 
it is not because the gospel has made him miserable ; if there be 
any man in this assembly who is not a joyful man, it is not be- 
cause the gospel is not fitted to make him so ; but because he is 
cherishing some sin which acts like a blind upon the gospel light, 
and prevents its cheering, its enlivening, and illuminating beams 
from entering into the chamber of his soul, and there lighting up 
perpetual sunshine. The gospel, then, is one-third character, and 
two-thirds privilege : not meat nor drink, nor form nor ceremony, 
about which men fight; but "righteousness, peace, and joy." 

How striking it is that all the quarrels among Christians are 
mostly about the negative part — about meat or drink. Now, if 
they would lay aside looking at the negative — form, ceremony, 
fasting, feasting, silk robe and surplice, meat and drink, about 
which disputes are endless, and would look more at " righteous- 
ness, peace, and joy," about which we feel unanimous, they 
would find they had left the region of passion and the arena of 
conflict, the gray twilight of misapprehension ; and that they were 
in the province of unity, amid the air of peace, and the lights of 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 109 

joy where the wilderness rejoices ; and the solitary place blos- 
soms as the rose. 

Having ascertained what this kingdom is, as God himself 
has defined it, we see what it is that can truly renovate man- 
kind. Man has various prescriptions: God has but one. One 
man has a temperance society, and that is, I dare say, good; 
another has a peace society, and that is good enough, I sup- 
pose in its place; another man has some other society for some 
other object, and it may be equally good. But all these must 
fail, however good in design, however pretty in their little spheres 
of little working — they are toys, not quickening truths. Men 
will never be truly temperate, until the grace of God that teacheth 
to live soberly is implanted in their hearts ; and nations will never 
get peace by burning the navy and* reducing the army. One of 
the greatest means, perhaps, in this sinful world of keeping 
peace may be the maintenance of the army and the navy; and 
one of the greatest blunders, I fear, may be found to be the de- 
stroying or weakening of either. But neither army nor navy are 
the means of creating peace. The only thing that can make 
peace is the kingdom of peace in every man's conscience, and the 
reign of the Prince of peace in every king's kingdom. When 
the whole world has become Christian, then will be the time to beat 
the spear into the ploughshare, but not until then. Our Lord 
has told us, "I am not come to send peace on earth, but a 
sword;" not intentionally, but necessarily. The result of holi- 
ness coming into contact with sin, peace coming into contact with 
war, love coming into contact with enmity, will be war, discord, 
division, dispute. All man's plans for ameliorating society fail, 
because they touch merely the robes of society ; they do not reach 
its heart. Man would be for manufacturing peace and happiness 
by machinery : God, for making happiness and peace by implant- 
ing within the principles of the gospel of peace. Man hits upon 
a scheme ; God implants a principle. Man wants to make duty 
a soft lawn, not a battle ; his life sitting in an easy chair, not a 
race that he has to run. Thus he proposes to reform society by 
reforming its circumstances, an empirical scheme which must 
always inevitably fail. Christianity proposes a revolution with- 
in, and then there will be a reformation without. It acts by 

10 



110 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

mind ; all other schemes act by mechanism. Man's plan is to 
begin at the circumference, and try to get inward; God's plan is 
to begin at the heart, and then carry power, principle, and re- 
formation outward. Man's way is to give man something that he 
has not ; God's way is to make man something that he is not. 
Man's plan is to give the patient a softer bed; God's plan is to 
cure the patient. The one is weakness, the other is power. The 
one is the quackery of man ; the other is the kingdom of God, 
and "righteousness, peace, and joy" in the individual heart; and 
thus " righteousness, peace, and joy" in universal society. 

If this be the kingdom of God, is it implanted in your hearts ? 
However sure the prospect of its universal sovereignty may be — 
however possible that it may burst upon the world like a thunder- 
clap ; yet it is true that, day by day, it is gaining power and pro- 
gress in individual hearts — it is advanced by means — it is ours 
to use them. Day by day, I solemnly believe, all society is 
splitting into two grand sections. You will find that all such 
names as Churchmen and Dissenters, Independents, and Baptists, 
and Wesleyans, et cetera, et cetera, and unfortunately et cetera 
still, will be lost in one great phalanx — they that are the Lord's. 
On the other hand, there will be another section antagonistic to 
that — Tractarians, Puseyites, Papists, the Greek Church, and all 
that hold the traditions of men — all passed over to their side, 
and under their banner, and forming the phalanx of antichrist : 
God's people finding the centre of their unity in Christ ; they 
that are not God's people finding the centre of their unity in 
antichrist. During the heat of the collision, the Lord will ap- 
pear, and shine before his ancients gloriously; and after smiting 
all the opposing kingdoms of the world, as the great mystic stone, 
he will, in the language of the text, " set up a kingdom that shall 
never be destroyed ; but it shall break in pieces and consume all 
these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever." I ask, my dear 
friends, have you the elemental principle of this kingdom in your 
hearts? In other words, are you Christians? Remember, if 
there be any valid excuse why you should not be Christians, you 
will never be condemned for the want of Christianity. Wherever 
there is a valid excuse, there is no duty ; but there is no excuse 
in the height or in the depth, why every man is this assembly 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. HI 

should not, this very night, resolve that for hirn and his, he will 
serve the Lord. All the excuses that men make are paltry and 
untenable. One says, "How liberal I would be, if I had not 
this encumbrance. " Another says, " How religious I would be, 
if I were not so busy. ;; Another, again, says, "How good I 
should be, if I could only dispose of those circumstances which 
trammel me at present, but which by-and-by will be removed. " 
My dear friends, circumstances are to be the servants of man ; 
not man the servant of circumstances. We have nothing in the 
universe to do with circumstances, but to conquer them. The 
solemnity of duty, the obligation of convictions, responsibility to 
God, cannot wait till the circumstances around us are adjusted, 
but must pass, like ploughshares, through all circumstances; 
leaving scope for duty, none for excuse. I ask again, is the king- 
dom of God erected in your heart ? Do you know what it is to 
have a righteousness to lean upon, so complete that you would 
not fear at this moment to look the Sovereign Judge in the face, 
and feel that there is no condemnation for you ? Have you, at 
this moment, that peace which would enable you to feel perfectly 
composed if the earth were to vibrate beneath your feet by suc- 
cessive earthquakes, the sun to become , as blood, the stars to fall 
from their sockets, and the last conflagration to kindle on the 
globe that you tread upon — would you feel peace ? Nay more, 
in the absence of all, in the loss of the fruit of the fig-tree — of 
all the property you have accumulated — in the midst of all losses, 
can you say, "Yea, I will rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the 
God of my salvation V Christianity is not a mere creed that a 
man subscribes to • it is a kindling principle that runs through 
the whole of man's nature. Christianity is not a dogma for 
schoolmen to wrangle about ; it is a great, vital, personal expe- 
rience for each man to feel, and for the absence of which each 
man is responsible. We can all dispute about orthodoxy, and 
quarrel about ceremonies ; and the devil avails himself of such 
quarrels to conceal and darken the solemn obligations to believe 
in Jesus, to go to God, and to have peace with him through the 
blood of the covenant, and righteousness and joy in the Holy 
Ghost. Let us cease to quarrel. Let us begin to live. 

I have thus looked at this kingdom as composed of principles ; 



112 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

let me notice it now as composed of subjects. Who are the sub- 
jects of this kingdom ? In one short sentence, they are those in 
whose hearts are " righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy 
Ghost." But, if I may expand it, I would say, the subjects of 
this kingdom are not, as I have already endeavoured to indicate, 
men of any one denomination, or any one ceremony. You may 
be churchmen, or you may be dissenters, and not subjects of this 
kingdom. You may pray with a liturgy, or pray without one, 
and yet not be subjects of this kingdom. You may worship in 
chapel, in church, or in cathedral, and yet not be subjects of this 
kingdom. The subjects of this kingdom are not distinguished by 
the conventionalisms of man, but by inward regeneration of heart 
by the Holy Spirit of God. I do believe that if the attempt suc- 
ceed that is now made to identify, by a decision of any sort, bap- 
tism — a precious sacrament — with regeneration ; leading men to 
suppose that, baptized canonically, they are regenerated surely, 
the most awful apostasy will be commenced by the church of many 
of our fellow-subjects. If it were only understood what is man's 
state by nature, they would never dream that baptizing him by 
water could essentially alter that state. It may alter it ecclesias- 
tically : morally and truly, it cannot. What is man's state ? If 
man, by sin and by the fall, had merely suffered a slight shock — 
if all that Adam's ruin and Adam's sin had done were to throw 
man into a faint or swoon, then I do not see why water sprinkled 
on him might not revive him, and set him on his feet again. But 
if this be not the expression of the true state — if man be really 
dead in trespasses and in sins, let me ask you, who can raise the 
spiritually dead ? Only he who will sound the trumpet, and the 
dead shall come forth from their graves, can speak to the heart, 
and the heart of stone shall become a heart of living, of sensible, 
and of sympathizing flesh. The members of this kingdom are 
not the baptized, nor the circumcised as such ; but they are mem- 
bers of the body of Christ, the sons of God, the elect of God, a 
chosen generation, a peculiar people, a holy nation : " the lights 
of the world," "the salt of the earth," " living stones," a "royal 
priesthood," " kings and priests," and " servants of God," the 
"sheep of his pasture," "disciples," and "heirs of God," 
" Christians" — the first name, as it will also be the last. 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 113 

Let me notice, briefly, the external characteristics of this king- 
dom. It is a catholic kingdom. We are the true catholic church ; 
and this is a branch of the catholic church. The Romish Church 
is a section split off from it; and our objection to it is, that it is 
sectarian and not catholic. Catholic is the attribute of some of 
the epistles in the New Testament; it is the attribute of the 
church of Christ. But whom does it comprehend? First, all 
those who have fallen asleep in Christ. Secondly, those who are 
now alive, and born again. Thirdly, those who are not yet born, 
but will be born, and shall be born again, in the Providence of 
G-od. These are they who compose the catholic kingdom ; and 
when the last day shall come, all its subjects, from the first hour 
of the world's existence to its last, shall meet together, and con- 
stitute the one visible catholic church of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

This kingdom is a united kingdom. Its members may differ 
in forms, in ceremony, in detail, as men ever differ in these re- 
spects ; but they have one common characteristic — they are born 
again, they are children of one Father, they are walking in Christ 
the one way, they are regenerated by one Spirit, they cleave to 
one Bible, they are looking for one home : " Let there be no strife 
between my herdsmen and thy herdsmen, for we be brethren." 
The Bomish Church is a united kingdom, but it has a false centre 
— man ; we are a united kingdom, but it is around the true cen- 
tre, and that centre — Christ. And as I told you before, it is not 
enough to claim uniformity; there must be unity. Man can 
make a company uniform by dressing them alike, and making 
them march or move to the same tune ; but G-od alone can make 
hearts one by uniting them to himself, and inspiring them by his 
almighty grace. 

In the next place, this kingdom is a holy kingdom : it is com- 
posed of saints. Who are saints ? If you ask a member of the 
Church of Borne, he will say, Saints are those who wrought mi- 
racles, and, fifty years after the miracles were wrought, were 
canonized by the pope, according to a certain ceremony appointed 
for that purpose, and who are to be prayed to. If you ask the 
Bible, it tells you : " The saints at Pkilippi," " The saints at 
Damascus," "The saints that are at Corinth," "The saints that 
are at Borne." In other words, all true Christians are saints. 

10* 



114 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

The word is a translation of ayoi, the holy ones, the people of 
God. We are either saints by grace, or we are sinners by nature, 
and in no respect saints at all. If we belong to this kingdom, as 
its subjects, we shall be characterized by holiness, not perfect, but 
progressive ; holiness in aim, holiness in aspiration, holiness in 
sympathy, and perfect holiness when time shall be no more. At 
present, I do not believe there is any one perfectly holy; I do not 
believe that perfect holiness is attainable in this world ; for there 
is no stage of a man's life in which he will not find these words 
applicable to him : " If we say/' says John — not separating him- 
self from his flock — " that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, 
and the truth is not in us." " But," he adds, "if we confess our 
sins, Grod is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse 
us from all unrighteousness." And the seventh chapter of the 
Epistle to the Romans need only be read to show you that there 
is a battle-field in every man's heart; a law of the flesh that 
wars against the law of the spirit : so that when you would do 
good, evil is present with you. The man who is born again, and 
seeks to be holy, as God is holy, is like the poor captive bird in 
the cage : the cage cannot kill the bird, the bird cannot free itself 
from the cage; it can only still wait, and persevere, and sing, 
and seek, and look, till the hour of its freedom, its perfect eman- 
cipation into brighter realms and better days draws near. 

Finally, then, this kingdom, thus characterized and composed 
of these subjects, is the kingdom that shall destroy all other 
kingdoms, and cover the whole earth. Babylon, the great apos- 
tasy of the earth, shall be utterly consumed; the smoke of her 
fire shall rise up for ever and ever. The Jews shall be gathered 
to their own land; yea, Jesus shall shine in the midst of them, 
and before his ancients gloriously. Then the body shall be 
raised, for the trumpet shall sound, and the -dead in Christ shall 
rise first; then we who are alive shall be caught up with them, 
and so meet the Lord in the air. Then Christ shall be revealed; 
we shall be like him — that is, perfectly holy; we shall be like 
him, for we shall see him as he is. Then sacraments shall cease, 
for they are only to last "till I come again;" then faith will de- 
part, for it will be merged in fruition; then hope will disappear 
like a bright vision, for it shall be merged in having; and then 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD. 115 

grace sliall be swallowed up in glory; there shall be no more 
tears, nor sighing, nor sorrow; all graves shall be filled up; the 
orphan's weeping face no more scarred with tear-channels; all 
creation's discord subdued; all nature at one with itself, and at 
one with Grod; and earth a vestibule of heaven; heaven and 
earth eternally one ! What a blessed day ! humanity pines for 
it; creation groans and travails till this kingdom consume all 
other kingdoms, and flourish for ever. The slave in the mines 

O 7 

of Siberia longs for it; the slave in the Southern States of Ame- 
rica cries for it; the poor needle-woman, the greatest slave of all, 
earning a halfpenny or a penny per hour, as I have myself wit- 
nessed, sighs, and cries for it. Let them have patience and 
pray on; it will come. Grod hears the cry of the oppressed, the 
groans of nature, the petitions of his saints; and the kingdom 
shall come, and "it shall not be destroyed, nor left to other peo- 
ple, but break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms." Its 
light shall never be quenched, for Grod is its illumination; its 
life shall never be extinguished, for Grod is its everlasting life. 
Sublime thought ! that from the lonely and sequestered villages 
of Bethlehem and Nazareth there has come forth a kingdom 
whose triumphs multiply every day, whose glories shall fill the 
whole earth, whose expanding and progressive spring is God the 
Omnipotent; a kingdom that will shine when marble statues are 
defaced, and when palaces, and noble halls, and thrones, and 
dynasties are ground to powder, and scattered as the chaif upon 
the summer threshing-floor. That kingdom is at our doors; that 
bright epoch comes speedily. Are you interested in it? Have 
you a share in it? Are you subjects of it? Are you born 
again ? 

My dear friends, what an awful thing if that kingdom should 
come in all its glory, and we should find ourselves excluded. 
What a terrible thing, if, when the trumpet shall sound, (and we 
know not when it may sound,) and the dead in every church- 
yard shall rise, — if from a grave where there are twain, one shall 
be taken and one left. And then, we that are alive, it is said, 
shall be caught up in the air. Oh, what a terrible separation 
will it be for one of a family, on hearing the royal sound, to as- 
sume mysterious wings, and soar, and come to Jesus, and the 



116 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

other to be left! And yet I am not describing a picture of 
fancy; I am stating what Grod himself has said. How dreadful 
the separation ! We now mourn over the loss of those that fall 
asleep in Jesus; what a terrible shock will it be when we find 
those that we loved upon earth severed from us for ever and for 
ever ! Why is it, my dear friends, that we are not Christians ? 
Why are we not the people of Grod ? Why are we not trying to 
make others so? There is no reason outside you. There is only 
one — you will not. Your inability is moral. There is not the 
least reason why every man in this assembly may not go home 
this night, and bow his heart before God, and be at peace with 
him through Jesus Christ. Recollect the serpent of brass. The 
dying Israelite had but to look : the instant he looked he had 
physical life. As Moses lifted up the serpent, so must the Son 
of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth on him, looketh to 
him, leans upon him as a Saviour, may have instant life. May 
we have this kingdom within us; may we be its subject?, and so 
be the subjects of the kingdom of the Lord, for Christ's sake. 
Amen. 



117 



LECTURE IX. 



EARLY MARTYR 



" Shadraeh, Meshach, and Abed-nego, answered and said to the King, Ne- 
buchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter." — Dan. iii. 16. 

You will recollect that I explained in a series of successive 
discourses that remarkable image which, appeared to Nebuchad- 
nezzar, of gold, silver, brass, and iron, and then the ten toes, 
representing ten kingdoms, mixed with iron and with clay, and 
incapable, by any pressure applied to them, of coalescing and 
mingling. I showed you that all that is so minutely described 
in prophecy has been exactly fulfilled in history; that man's his- 
tory, written by man's pen, is the echo of God's prophecy in- 
spired by God's Spirit; and that the strongest, because accumu- 
lating evidence that holy men of old spake as they were moved 
by the Holy Ghost, is not in the record of the miracles that 
were done, or in the sublimity and purity of the truths that were 
uttered, but in the continuous fulfilment of those ancient pro- 
phecies in the years as they roll past before us. 

We now come to another stage in the incidents connected 
with Daniel himself — not connected with prophecy, but with 
personal character. I may, however, notice that Daniel's expo- 
position of the image made the king raise him to the highest 
dignity, and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego also to the 
highest honour. But one grieves to see how short-lived is the 
patronage of man ; for we find by the preceding chapter that the 
men who were the objects of royal adoration yesterday are the 
objects of his fury and his vengeance to-day. Truly we are not 
to trust in princes nor in man's son. 

I may here notice the meaning of what I omitted to explain in 
my last lecture, that Daniel sat in the gate of the king. (Chap. ii. 



118 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

49.) You must have observed that iu the Bible, gates are fre- 
quently referred to : " He sat in the gate/' " Judgment in the 
gate." " Honoured among the elders in the gate." So Daniel 
was seated in the gate. The gate of a city in ancient times was 
the place from which justice was dispensed; it was a strong place, 
and was specially guarded ; and to put Shadrach, Meshach, and 
Abed-nego in the gate, was to make them counsellors, and judges, 
and rulers in the midst of the land. The only country that re- 
tains any thing like a memorial of this usage is Turkey. You 
know the phrase used in the newspapers, when they refer to Turk- 
ish decisions — the "sublime Porte" — a word derived from porta, 
which means a gate. It is simply the remains of an ancient East- 
ern custom, or oriental usage, retained in a modern tongue, and 
connecting the world that now is with the rites and customs of a 
world that is passed away. 

In the chapter I have read we find that Nebuchadnezzar raised 
a golden image of prodigious height. He tried to captivate all 
to worship it by the sounds of music, the dulcimer, and flute, and 
various instruments ; and he warned them that if his music would 
not prevail, his furnace would be sure to punish all recusants j so 
that if they were not captivated, he would try to force them ; and 
if he did not force them, he would take care to burn them. How 
like Popery ! 

It appears that certain Chaldeans and counsellors applied to 
the king — men who envied the dignity of Shadrach, Meshach, 
and Abed-nego — -and informed him that there were Jewish parties 
who had dared to disobey his commands. He sends for them, 
speaks to them in very reasonable terms, warns them of what 
they had done, and the consequences that would follow, but unex- 
pectedly receives from them the magnanimous and noble reply : 
" We are not careful, king, it is not a matter of anxiety to us, 
to answer thee ; our miuds are fully made up ; we know what is 
duty • and in the face of kings, and amid the prospect of a fiery 
furnace, we have grace to stand by it." 

This image set up by Nebuchadnezzar, some think, was meant 
to be an imitation of the splendid image which he saw in a dream. 
An image passed before him to give him a foresight of the fate 
of the kingdoms of the world ; but instead of learning prophetic 



EARLY MARTYRS. 119 

wisdom from it, which was its legitimate use, he makes a cgypy of 
it — a copy that seems, to his taste, to excel the original — and sets 
it up as an idol, or an object of worship. It is a singular fact, 
that all false religion is not original ; it is only the corruption of 
the true : and we may calculate the height, the depth, and sub- 
stance of the true religion by the false religion which follows it ; 
just as men estimate the height of the pyramids by the length 
of the shadows they cast around them. This king used the image 
which he saw, and which God meant for a sublime and good pur- 
pose, to be a model for an idol, which was to take the place that 
belonged to God alone ; just as the Israelites took the brass ser- 
pent, which had a most beneficent mission according to God's ap- 
pointment, and made it an object of worship. Never, never is 
corruption so great as when it is the corruption of that which is 
pure. Popery is thus more corrupt than heathenism ) an angel 
falliDg becomes a fiend ; a woman falling from her dignity and 
purity becomes the most degraded of all ; and pure rites and or- 
dinances perverted by the wickedness of man become the most 
deadly vehicles of dishonour to God and injury to mankind. Take 
the sacrament of baptism, and make it occupy the place of the 
Holy Spirit ; and you do what the Israelites did with the brass 
serpent, what Nebuchadnezzar did with the golden image : you 
lift it from its true and its beautiful position — a sign, a seal, and 
an introduction to the visible church — and you put it in the room 
of God, and make it sit in the temple of God, in antichristian 
state, showing itself that it is God. 

Most likely, the cause of the king's acting thus was not so much 
his love of idolatry as the cunning advice of his counsellors around 
him. They saw that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego were 
raised to honour — they were envious of the dignity to which 
these great and good men were exalted. They therefore hit 
upon the scheme of ensnaring them by getting the kiDg to erect 
a god for universal worship, which they knew too well, because 
they knew the substance and depth of these men's religion, they 
would never consent to adore. Party spirit is the bitterest of all : 
it has done what nothing else in the history of man can do ; but 
it is a lesson to those who indulge in it, that wherever in the Bible 
it has been made to act against the people of God, it has recoiled 



120 PKOPHETIC STUDIES. 

in its action, and injured or destroyed those who used it. These 
men tried to destroy Shadraeh, Meshach, and Abed-nego, and 
they were destroyed themselves. It seems to be a great law 
or ordinance in G-od's dispensations with mankind, that they that 
shed blood, their blood shall be shed ; that they that wield the 
sword shall fall by the sword ; that no man can smite another 
without being smitten himself; nor any man curse another with- 
out receiving the echo and rebound of that curse immediately into 
his own bosom. Let us pray for kings, that they may have grace 
not to set up idols ; let us pray for their ministers and counsellors, 
that they may have grace to give them good advice. A king has 
power; and when that power is allied to goodness, it is all but di- 
vine ; when that power is allied to wickedness, it is as disastrous 
as it is sinful. 

The image is here described to be of a certain measurement- 
threescore cubits in height, and in breadth six cubits. Anybody 
can see that this is a disproportionate measurement, and that an 
image which was sixty cubits (about ninety feet) in height, and 
only six cubits (or nine feet) in breadth, would be utterly dispro- 
portionate. It is plain, therefore, that this is — if I may reve- 
rently use the expression — a loose way of describing the image 
and pedestal together, the united height of both being ninety 
feet. Herodotus, the father of history, alludes to a golden image 
that was set up at Babylon, which he himself had heard of, and 
which every one was obliged to kiss before he entered the city. 
And we know, from classic story, that at Rhodes there was an 
image of gold seventy cubits in height — ten cubits higher than 
this one — and that it took thirteen years to construct it, or put 
together its different molten parts ; and on its being thrown down 
by an earthquake, such was its weight that it ploughed up the 
solid earth, and buried itself to a considerable extent beneath the 
ground. I quote these facts to show that the incidents here re- 
corded are attested by heathen historians ; that in heathen history 
itself we have a parallel case ; and that such images were not un- 
usual, nor impossible to be constructed by ancient art. 

This image, you read, in the next place, was made completely 
of gold. One can well conceive what a splendid object it must 
have been. It was incapable of being oxidized by the rains and 



EARLY MARTYRS. 121. 

the atmosphere, and therefore it perpetually retained its splendour 
in that eastern and purer climate. No doubt, the king depended 
for popular adoration upon the splendour of the image, thinking- 
its brilliancy and grandeur would be an attraction irresistible to 
all men. It seems to be the law of false religion that, having no 
inner moral beauty, it must depend upon outward trappings, pomp, 
and splendour, for its weightiest claims ) so much so that when- 
ever we see a church begin to heap up splendid pomps and cere- 
monies, gorgeous robes, magnificent rites, it should always lead 
us to suspect that that church is aware that the inner beauty is 
evaporated, and that the outer beauty must be increased and aug- 
mented, in order to conceal its loss and make it attractive. So 
it is with that great apostasy in the West. The Church of Rome 
depends for her power, not upon the purity of her creed, not upon 
the greatness and holiness of her morality, but upon the splen- 
dour of her rites, her crucifixes, her genuflexions, her golden 
shrines, her embroidered altars, her august and impressive tem- 
ples : like the ancient temples of Egypt, all magnificent as archi- 
tecture could make them without, but inside are the reptiles of the 
Nile, the gods the people bow down to. 

In order to make the image as impressive as possible, the king 
collected around it a great band of musicians, with all sorts of in- 
struments of music. He knew the charm, the power, and popular 
effect of good music ; and he was resolved that not only should 
the image have unwonted splendour by being golden, and thus 
reflecting the rays of rising and setting suns, but that it should 
also have near it all that is impressive and attractive in the shape 
of beautiful music. Painting and statuary are for the eye ; music 
for the ear. Thus he thought he would be sure to make his way 
to the heart. Some one has sarcastically remarked that if you 
can secure the five senses of men, you may calculate upon all the 
rest. What was said in sarcasm, has too often been fulfilled in 
fact. Men are too often led by their senses, not by their judg- 
ment ; they worship show, not in spirit and truth. The Church 
of Rome is aware of this fact, and has made provision for man's 
senses in a most wonderful manner; calculating, with masterly 
sagacity, that, having secured the homage of all the senses by her 

11 



122 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

adaptations to them, she will, in nine cases out of ten, secure the 
conversion of the mind and the homage of the heart. 

These three Jews, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, as I 
have already said, were accused as guilty. They felt they had no 
alternative : they refused to bow down and worship the image 
the king had set up. It was not on account of veneration 
for their own idolatry that the Chaldeans accused them; it was 
envy, jealousy, hatred, and all uncharitableness. When the king 
hears of their disobedience, he sends for them, speaks to them with 
condescending courtesy and kindness, and asks them the reason 
why they had refused to worship the image that he had set up. 
He had no idea that a man had a conscience — not the least idea 
that there was a word mightier and more impressive than a king's 
word; and he thought it the most monstrous, and perhaps the 
most extraordinary phenomenon he had met with in all his reign, 
that any man should refuse to obey the king's command, and re- 
fuse in circumstances where obedience was entitled to so much 
favour, and where disobedience would be visited with so severe 
and terrible a penalty. The three Hebrew youths calmly, cour- 
teously, but firmly, refused. They were not insolent to the king; 
they did not insult his creed ; they were prepared to argue with 
him, do doubt, if he condescended to permit them ; they used no 
offensive epithets, but they calmly and firmly said : " We cannot 
do it ; it is with us a matter of conscience." Conscience is that 
sacred realm, even in the bosom of the lowliest, into which a 
king's hand may not dare to enter; it is that sequestered, solemn, 
awful nook in the constitution of the human soul, into which God 
alone can claim admission. Kings may control the body; they 
cannot make or alter the convictions of the soul. Force may 
make bad men hypocrites ; but no force or fraud can make good 
men disobey the behests of conscience and the commandments of 
their God. There is nothing beneath God and the Bible so sacred 
as the conscience ; and there is no one faculty within us to which 
we should listen with more reverential and attentive awe. It may 
be blinded, it may be warped, it may be hardened, it may be 
seared, but it is never utterly dead ; and a day always comes when, 
if long neglected, long seared, long disregarded, it reasserts its 
ancient and inherent rights, ascends to its own sacred pulpit, and 



EARLY MARTYRS. 123 

reasons, in tones of thunder, of righteousness, and judgment, and 
temperance ; and man must hear it. 

The king, finding these three youths determined, seeing that 
they could not be captivated by his music, nor persuaded by his 
reasons, to worship the image, threatens them with the burning 
fiery furnace seven times heated. Such is invariably the last re- 
source of a false religion. It will try, first, to captivate by its 
charms, and if it fail, it will then endeavour to coerce by its 
threats. But the same conscience that smiled at the seductions 
of the music will triumph over the threatenings of wrath. The 
seven times heated furnace has no terrors for that man who 
knows that the ever-living G-od is his friend, and eternity his 
happy and blessed home. Tertullian, in speaking- of the treat- 
ment of Christians by the Roman emperors of his clay — that is, 
in the days of heathenism, says, " We are thrown to the wild 
beasts to make us recant ; we are burned in the flame ; we are 
condemned to the mines; we are banished to the islands, such as 
Patmos ; — l and all have failed/ ;; So was it here : the sove- 
reign's frown created no terror in these young men's breasts. 
They felt the force of duty ; their eye was single ; their path was 
plain ; their course was marked out before them. How absurd is 
persecution, in whatever way you look at it ! No punishment in- 
flicted on the body can possibly alter the convictions of the soul. 
One wonders man can think so. If a man were all body, perse- 
cution might make him what the persecutor pleased ; but man is 
soul and body, and no maltreatment of the one ought, or is able, 
to warp the judgment of the other. The soul is to be dealt with 
by argument, by evidence, by love ; the body, being either pleased 
or punished, can exercise no real influence over it. 

In the conduct of these Hebrew youths we have a great pre- 
cedent for ourselves to follow in less painful circumstances. We 
should rather suifer, and if needs be, die, than renounce the gos- 
pel. It is a strong statement, but it is a scriptural one. St. 
Paul says, "I am ready not to be bound only, but to die at Jeru- 
salem for the name of the Lord Jesus. " Perhaps it is not right 
to say to men in these times of so great civil freedom, "You 
should be prepared to die for the gospel." Perhaps to ask you to 
test your present Christianity by your readiness at a future time 



124 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

to die for it ; is not fair, scriptural, or necessary. I believe, when 
martyrs are required, God gives a martyr's spirit to meet the re- 
quirement. God's grace is also sufficient for the crisis ; it is not 
given in excess before the crisis comes. The great question we 
have to ask is, " Are we truly the children of God ? Are we, in 
heart and conviction, the followers of the Lamb ? Are we wash- 
ed in his most precious blood ? Are we leaning upon his most 
perfect righteousness ? Are we looking to God as our Father ? 
Are we anticipating the glory to be revealed as our home F" If 
we can make sure of this, we need not now consider whether we 
could die for Christ. "When the exigency arrives that will require 
us to do so, the God that permits the crisis in his providence 
will supply the strength in his grace ; a.nd you will find it amply 
sufficient for you. 

How composed and beautiful was the remark of these Hebrew 
youths : " The God whom we serve is able to deliver us ; if he 
does not, well ; we commit ourselves to a faithful God." As if 
they had said : "If he miraculously deliver us, it is well ; if he 
do not, we know it is equally well. It will be but the torture 
of a moment ; an exceeding weight of an eternal glory is beyond 
it. We do not like the fire ; we have nerves as well as Nebu- 
chadnezzar; we have sensibilities as keen; we shrink from tor- 
ture, as all humanity must shrink ; but we are willing to brave 
the flame for the glory that lies beyond it; we are willing to cross 
the deep, dark flood of death for the sake of the bright land of 
Goshen, that stretches in perpetual sunshine on the other side. 
We do not love death, nor do we wish death ; but we are willing 
to bear it for what death leads to." When you hear persons say, 
" We wish to die/' their language is not correct. No man wishes 
to die. I have said before, that of all things death is the most 
horrible, the most unnatural, the thing from which we naturally 
and properly shrink and recoil; because man was never made to 
die. Sin has brought in " death and all our wo." But the 
Christian says, " I am willing to meet death either as a foe to 
hurl defiance at, or as a friend — to welcome the message and the 
messenger too ; not because I love that friend, or because I court 
that foe, but because in either case he is a pioneer that paves and 
opens the way for me to an inheritance which is incorruptible, 



EARLY MARTYRS. 125 

and undented, and that fadeth not away." These youths said, 
" The God whom we serve is able to deliver us ; and we know 
that if it be for his glory he will deliver us." They placed the 
whole stress upon God's ability. Satan would say of miracles, 
"Let God never interfere to deliver;" Man would say, "Let 
God always interfere to deliver;" God has determined in his 
wisdom to interfere when it is most for his glory, and best for 
you. Were God always to deliver his servants by a perpetual 
miracle, it would not be a miracle ; it would be called — to use 
the phraseology of the day — "a law of nature." Were God 
never to deliver his servants, then the world would say, and 
Christians would begin almost to think, " There is no God." He 
interposes miraculously often enough to convince that God is, and 
God acts ; and he interposes seldom enough to make more vivid 
the interposition as an evidence of a divine and providential 
power. I need not say that a ceaseless miracle is, by its very 
necessity, no miracle at all. The present law is, that water should 
run down-hill; but if the law were that it should run up-hill, and 
if it had been so for eighteen centuries, men would say, " For 
water to run up-hill is a law of nature ;" and if any thing oc- 
curred to make it run down-hill, they would say, "This is a mi- 
racle." The present law is, that the vine should be planted, that 
the rain should saturate the soil in which it grows, that the juice 
should rise through the stem and go into the branches and the 
leaves, that it shall effloresce into blossom, and ripen into fruit ; 
that the fruit shall be pressed, the juice fermented, and be con- 
verted into wine. But Christ, by one word, shortened the pro- 
cess; and instead of taking a year to allow the water to turn into 
wine, which is the ordinary law, he did it in a minute, saying, 
"Let the water be wine." But if water always became wine by 
the looking of a man, that would be a law, and the other process 
would be the miracle. What is continuous is called the law ; the 
suspension of the continuity indicates the interposition of the 
Lawgiver. A ceaseless miracle, then, is an absurdity. There- 
fore the idea of that body of Christians, who have followed the 
late Edward Irving, or improved or misimproved upon what he 
said — that there should be ceaseless miracles in the church, is to 

11* 



126 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

me absurd ; it will not bear examination ; it cannot be, by the 
very nature and necessity of the thing. 

We read, that when the king had failed to convince, or to awe, 
or seduce these youths, he ordered the furnace, in his fury, to be 
heated seven-fold. The means of doing so were very easy in that 
country. The whole soil of Babylon to this clay is full of naphtha 
and bitumen. They had only to collect the brushwood of the 
forests, and to cast in plenty of this naphtha and bitumen, (as an 
ancient historian says was done,) and the heat of the furnace, as 
any one must be aware, would become highly intense — or, as it is 
here said, be seven-fold. 

The three youths were then cast into the fire, with their hosen 
and their clothes on, as the last and most desperate punishment 
the furious monarch could inflict. But God forgets not his own. 
At this crisis God was true to his promise, beheld in love his 
servants, and interposed for their deliverance. The flame recog- 
nised the presence of Him that made it, and bowed reverently 
before the Son of God, just as on other occasions the waters of 
the sea owned him; the winds heard himj and all nature re- 
sponded to him, and obeyed him. The flame lost its power to 
consume, because it was commanded not to do so by Him that 
kindled it at the first. Nature is all pliant in the hand of Jesus. 
He is the Lord of creation; he has but to speak, and all things 
will respond in ten thousand echoes, " Speak, Lord, thy servants 
hear." These Hebrew youths, we are told by the apostle Paul, 
in his Epistle to the Hebrews, "quenched the violence of fire" 
by their faith. They said nothing calculated to irritate the king, 
as I have told you; they submitted meekly to the judgment he 
decreed, and cast the whole stress of their deliverance upon the 
Lord. Let me gather, then, from all this, these lessons. 

The mightiest on earth learn here, and have learned often 
since, how insignificant are the greatest efforts to injure the cause 
of Christ. 

If you will read the history of the church of Christ, you will 
find that the most furious opposition has only served to spread its 
principles, and to add new attractions to those that professed 
them. All the power of earth and hell cannot burn out one sin- 
gle truth; all the patronage of earth and hell cannot build up 



EARLY MARTYRS. 127 

one permanent lie. It is God's great law that all things, directly 
or indirectly, shall build np truth; and that nothing upon earth 
shall serve permanently to build up a lie. The Hebrew youths 
walked in the burning fire as amid groves of orange and of myr- 
tle, while one walked with them, like unto the Son of God — no 
doubt the Angel of the Covenant. The fury of the king was 
disappointed; the party-spirit of his ministers was checked; and 
they that kindled the fire were themselves the first victims of it. 
In looking at the conduct of these three youths, I may notice 
that they might have urged that it was their duty to obey the 
king, and worship the image he had set up; for it was the es- 
tablished religion of the country. So it unquestionably and, in 
this case, unhappily was. The king patronized the idol, and no 
doubt its worshippers; and these youths might have argued, as. 
some men argue still, "It is the established religion; it enjoys 
the sunshine of the countenance of the monarch; and as loyal 
subjects, it becomes us to embrace it." Whatever be the excel- 
lence, the merit, or the demerit of established religion, we should 
learn this: that the mere establishment of a creed — whether 
doing so be right or the reverse, it is needless now to discuss — is 
not necessarily the making of truth a lie, or the making of a lie 
truth. Mohammedanism is established in Turkey; but it is not, 
therefore, my duty to become a Mohammedan there. Popery is 
established in Austria; but it is not, therefore, my duty to be- 
come a Papist there. Pantheism, or the endowment of every 
thing upon earth that assumes the name of religion, is established 
in France; but it is not my duty to become a Pantheist, or to 
worship in the temple of the province in which I may be placed 
in France. Let religion be established by the powers that be, 
which they think true; but let me be regarded as having a con- 
science. If I cannot conform to the religion that is established 
by law, either from conscientious conviction, or from God's word, 
or from scrupulosity, as is the case with some, let me have the 
freedom — the full, unfettered freedom of worshipping beneath 
my own vine and my own fig-tree, according to the prescriptions 
of that conscience which kings can neither bind nor free, which 
laughs at sword and fire, and glories only in subjection to God 
its Sovereign. Because, then, it was the established religion, it 



128 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

was not therefore their duty to conform to it. Nor did they 
cease to be loyal subjects, because they would not be the church- 
men of that day. It is possible to be churchmen, and to be most 
disloyal; it is possible to be a dissenter, and to be most loyal. 
Our conformity to the established church, however excellent, is 
not necessary to our loyalty; our non-conformity to the establish- 
ed church, however bad, is not necessarily disloyalty. In reli- 
gious matters the laws should leave us free; in civil matters, the 
law of Caesar ought to be, not for wrath, but for conscience' sake, 
reverently obeyed. I am not here speaking against a religious 
establishment, but against the abuse of it. 

These Hebrew youths might have urged also the highest pos- 
sible expediency for bowing down and worshipping the image. 
Mark how they were situated. They were captives in the midst 
of Babylon; they were promoted to places of power; they had 
great means of doing good to their captive countrymen in the 
midst of the city of their habitation; and if they had belonged to 
the expediency-mongers of every age and country, they might 
have argued in this way: "True, it is very bad to bow down and 
worship this image; but we hold places of power; we have ex- 
cellent salaries; we have great influence; we may be the means 
of doing good to our poor captive fellow-countrymen. Had we 
not better, therefore, bow the body, though we do not bow the 
soul, to this golden image V If it had been a matter of form, or 
ceremony, a matter of discipline or ritual, then I would have 
said, "Remain in the communion in which you can do the 
greatest good;" but as it was a matter that touched the con- 
science; and as that conscience responded to what God said, 
"Thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them," these 
three Hebrew youths had no choice. They did what was right, 
and feared not that the right would be always the most expedient. 
Do what is right, and you will always find it expedient. That 
cannot be politically expedient which is morally wrong. It is 
God's law plainly unfolded in his word. Do not look behind you, 
nor before you, nor above you, nor around you; but be satisfied 
that all things will work for good to you, while you continue to 
act aright. Duty alone is ours ; all the region beyond it — the 
region of events and consequences — is exclusively God's. We 



EARLY MARTYRS. 129 

are to mind the duty that devolves upon us; we are to leave with 
Grod to settle the issues that may flow from our obedience to that 
duty. 

There was another reason they might have urged for their con- 
forming to the king's requirements — that was, their personal ob- 
ligations. They might have argued : "He has been to us a most 
gracious monarch; he has raised us, in his sovereignty, to places 
of high power and high honour; he has made us sit in the gate, 
the place of judgment, of greatness, and of justice, and we owe 
homage to the king and gratitude to the man." But duty to 
God was even stronger than gratitude and loyalty to an earthly 
king. My dear friends, there is nothing more painful than to 
be obliged to refuse a dear friend what our consciences tell us we 
cannot give. But "he that loveth father or mother," much less 
a. friend, "more than me, cannot be my disciple." We must 
take up the cross, and follow Jesus. Do all that you can to 
gratify your friends; but do nothing to irritate and disturb your 
peace of conscience, and the allegiance that you owe to Grod. 

These youths might have also argued: "If we refuse to wor- 
ship the golden image, we shall present a very singular aspect : 
it is the universal worship ; the whole mass upon the plain of 
Dura fall down and worship the image; and we three shall ap- 
pear the most singular and grotesque of non-conformists amid the 
inhabitants of mighty Babylon." Singularity, when it is as- 
sumed, is contemptible, and indicates a very weak mind indeed. 
To be singular for singularity's sake is positively detestable — be- 
low the dignity of man, and unworthy of the gravity of a Chris- 
tian ; but to be singular because it is the necessary result of not 
sinning, is worthy of the Christian, and it dignifies the man. We 
must not be afraid of being singular when duty makes that sin- 
gularity inevitable. If it be in an excellent thing, our singularity 
should not make us ashamed. Did you ever hear of any man 
ashamed of being singularly rich ? of a woman ashamed of being 
singularly beautiful? of a man ashamed of being singularly wise? 
Is it not very odd that men should be ashamed of being singu- 
larly religious? Is not religion more beautiful than beauty? 
wiser than wisdom ? and far more valuable than riches ? Do not 
court singularity, but cleave to duty; do not fear singularity, if 



130 PEOPHETIC STUDIES. 

avoiding sin necessitates it. Do not mind that the multitude are 
against you, if God be with you. Plant your foot upon one sin- 
gle text of the Bible, and defy all mankind: "Thou shalt not 
follow a multitude to do evil." "As for me and my house/' be 
it in Constantinople, be it in Vienna, — Petersburg or Rome, or 
Babylon or London; "as for me and my house," whatever other 
men may choose to do, "we will serve the Lord." 

These men, too, might have pleaded the terrible penalty to 
which they were exposed by disobeying the commandments of 
the king. It was a terrible penalty; and a severe penalty for 
disobedience to a command so easily obeyed by a genuflexion of 
the knee, yet so impossible to be done by the bowing of a Chris- 
tian's heart. They might have said, "It is a terrible thing to be 
cast into a burning fiery furnace/' but they looked at the furnace, 
even when it was hottest, and they looked at the duty, when it 
had not one advocate or follower besides them, and they chose 
duty — naked, simple duty; and they were not careful to answer 
the king how they should meet or endure the burning, fiery fur- 
nace. What gratitude do we owe to God that we can be true to 
duty, and yet not incur such a dreadful penalty. But what re- 
buke does the conduct of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego 
administer to many of us ! You think if you become Christian — 
it is the thought of many a young man here to-night — if you be- 
come Christian you will be — what? Thrown to the wild beasts? 
One might not be surprised if you hesitated. — Be cast into the 
fiery furnace. If so, one might not be surprised that you should 
pause. But you think only, "If I become a Christian I shall 
have to give up this profit," — that is all; "I shall have to re- 
nounce this pleasure; I shall have to shut up my shop on Sun- 
day," — that is all. And can you hesitate to comply with a clear 
command from God, because you will lose a little pleasure, part 
with a little profit, die not so rich, live not so splendidly : when 
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego refused to bow the knee for 
once upon the plain of Dura, though doing so would have gained 
them a loftier place, apparently, in the favour of their king, and 
shielded them from the terrible penalties attached to disobedience ? 
What you do now, indicates what you would have done if you 
had been added to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, and been 



EARLY MARTYRS. 131 

a fourth there. Yon would have bowed the knee, and worship- 
ped the image, and escaped the penalty. But how will you meet 
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego at the judgment-seat? They, 
with less light and fewer privileges — not having heard of Calvary, 
its cross, its agony, its bloody sweat — not having the gospel, in 
all its grace, and glory, and riches, unfolded to them — with 
weaker motives, less acquaintance with God, manfully refused 
the bribe, despised the penalty, and clave to duty; and you, 
amid privileges such as the world never tasted or enjoyed before, 
are overcome by the bribe, repelled by the penalty; open your 
shops on Sunday, cheat on the Monday, and grow rich by work- 
ing to death, in thousands, the young men that serve you. How 
would Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego have done if they had 
been of your religion and your spirit? And how will you meet 
them at that day when all the pageantry of kings and palaces 
will have passed away like a pale, airy phantasm; and duty, con- 
science, responsibility, God, the Saviour, the soul, will alone 
stand great and blessed, or terrible realities? 

These Hebrew youths had faith in God's power: they said, 
"He is able to deliver us." They had faith in God's promises; 
they felt that he would deliver them. Perhaps they had heard 
sounding on the plain of Dura that very promise which God pro- 
nounced to Isaiah about a hundred years before: "When thou 
passest through the waters, I will be with thee ; and through the 
rivers, they shall not overflow thee : when thou walkest through 
the fire, thou shall not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle 
upon thee." 

Then, these three youths had the hope of the "glory that re- 
mains to be revealed." Some persons have tried to show that 
the ancient Christians, before Christ — the Christians in his twi- 
light, as we are Christians in his dawn — had no idea of a future 
state, and that it is not clearly revealed in the Bible. It appears 
to me that the Old Testament does better than in express terms 
announce it; for in every sentence and verse it unequivocally 
implies it. If the burning fiery furnace was to be the termina- 
tion of the being of these Hebrew youths, how could they have 
braved it? What reward or inducement was there to do so? 
But we are told by the apostle, who knew what his countrymen 



132 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

believed — for lie himself was a Hebrew, (Heb. xi. 14,) "For 
they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a coun- 
try." "They desire a better country, that is, an heavenly." 
And again, speaking of Moses: "Choosing rather to suffer afflic- 
tion with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin 
for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than 
the treasures in Egypt : for he had respect unto the recompense 
of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath 
of the king; for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible." 

And now, let us learn this great lesson from all I have said — 
that the path of principle is always the highest possible expe- 
diency. Never do a thing because it seems expedient if it be 
not clearly right. Never hesitate to feel that the thing that is 
right in the sight of God, will be the most expedient in the ex- 
perience of man. God himself has said, "He that walketh up- 
rightly walketh surely." Enter the furnace, if needs be, in 
obedience to God, and God will deliver you. Enter Paradise it- 
self in disobedience to God, and God will not keep you, but it 
will be to you more terrible in the end than the furnace seven 
times heated. Remember always that God is able, and is willing 
to deliver you, and he will deliver you — when, how, and where 
it is most for his glory, and best for you. 

Learn also this last lesson : Christ has been with his church 
from the beginning of the world. Where has the church not 
been ? But you ask, perhaps, what is the church ? The church 
is not a great cathedral, or a national establishment, or local de- 
nomination — Independent, Wesleyan, Episcopal, or Presbyterian. 
The normal idea of the church of Christ is, " Where two or 
three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst 
of them." The church was once the family of Adam, and Jesus 
was present when Adam and Eve and Abel kneeled down before 
the altar of their God. The church was tossed upon the deep in 
the ark with Noah. The church was in Abraham's family when 
he remonstrated with Lot. The church was on the plain of Dura 
when the three Hebrew youths stood firm. And the church was, 
lastly, in the burning fiery furnace when the three youths were 
there, and the Son of God was present in the midst of them, true 
to his promise : " Where two or three are gathered together in my 



EARLY MARTYRS. 133 

name, there am I in the midst of them." An architect can build 
a cathedral ; a queen by her presence can create a palace ; but 
the presence of the Lord of glory alone can constitute a church ; 
and where two or three are present, there he will be. Let it be 
in the flood or the fire in the wilderness, or in the city, he will 
preserve it unto the last. The bush may blaze, but Grod is in the 
bush, and it cannot be consumed. His saints may suffer; but 
their sufferings shall only spread their faith, and glorify their 
Lord. And all things, the blunders of its friends, the bitterness 
of its enemies, the silence of its advocates, the opposition of its 
foes — all things, in height and depth, shall aid the cause of 
Christ, and prosper that church of which he is the foundation and 
blessed hope. Amen. 



12 



134 



LECTURE X. 



PRIDE ABASED. 



" Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, 
all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment : and those that walk in 
pride he is able to abase." — Daniel iv. 37. 

Perhaps, as I quoted all the previous chapter in my former 
lecture, it will be necessary now to read the greater portion of the 
chapter from which the text is taken — and on which, rather than 
on a mere historical statement, I desire in this lecture to dwell. 

We are told that Nebuchadnezzar, the king, wrote an epistle 
" unto all people and nations and languages that dwell on the earth ;" 
and the substance of that epistle we are told was, " Peace be mul- 
tiplied to you." He explains the ground on which he bases his 
statement — " I thought it good to show the signs and the won- 
ders that the high God" — not his idol Bel, whose praises he had 
sung before, but " that the high G-od hath wrought toward me." 
And then, carried away by the magnificent ideas that were before 
him, and by the goodness of that Grod who had so mercifully 
dealt with him, he exclaims in ecstasy, "How great are his signs ! 
and how mighty are his wonders ! his kingdom is"— not like my 
kingdom, a frail and fleeting one, but — "an everlasting king- 
dom, and his dominion is from generation to generation." He 
then rehearses the main facts from which he draws the precious 
truths contained in this chapter, one of which I am about to un- 
fold : he tells them, " I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at rest in my house, 
and flourishing in my palace." All his enemies were subdued 
without; all his fears were quieted within. And while he was 
thus " at rest in his house and flourishing in his palace," another 
dream, different from the one which had before glanced before his 
eyes in the night, visions passed before him, and his thoughts 



PRIDE ABASED. 135 

troubled him. He called all the magicians of his kingdom to 
whom he had been wont to look in his prosperity, and asked them 
to explain the marvellous vision which he had beheld. They 
were unable to make it understood. God always taught Ne- 
buchadnezzar what he has so often taught us, that all human 
glory must be stained, that God's alone may shine forth; that the 
wisdom of man — even of the magicians of the earth, must be seen 
and felt to be folly, in order that we may be led to drink from that 
fountain of wisdom which alone is pure and undefiled, and worthy 
of the name. Daniel, the minister of God, was again brought 
before Nebuchadnezzar, and was informed by him what his dream 
was, and required to give the solution of it. The dream was as 
follows : " I saw a tree in the midst of the earth, and the height 
thereof was great. The tree grew, and was strong, and the height 
thereof reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to the end of 
all the earth : the leaves thereof were fair, and the fruit thereof 
much, and in it was meat for all : the beasts of the field had 
shadow under it, and the fowls of the heaven dwelt in the boughs 
thereof, and all flesh was fed of it. I saw in the visions of my 
head upon my bed, and lo, a watcher and an holy one came down 
from heaven ; he cried aloud, and said thus, Hew down the tree 
and cut off his branches, shake off his leaves, and scatter his 
fruit : let the beasts get away from under it, and the fowls from 
his branches : nevertheless leave the stump of his roots in the 
earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of 
the field ; and let it be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his 
portion be with the beasts in the grass of the earth : let his heart 
be changed from man's, and let a beast's heart be given unto him, 
and let seven times pass over hini." Then Daniel, whose name 
was Belteshazzar, explains to Nebuchadnezzar what was the mean- 
ing and intent of the dream in these words : " My lord, the dream 
be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation thereof to thine 
enemies." You will notice in this verse, (19,) that the word 
" be" is printed in italics ; which shows that it was employed by 
the translators as being supposed by them to express more freely 
the meaning of the original. If it be so, the sentence would seem 
like a sort of anathema pronounced by Daniel on the enemies of 
the king ; but if we look at the original, we shall find that we 



136 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

ought to leave out "be," and then the verse would run thus : — 
" the dream (is) to them that hate thee," &c. — *. e., " it is a 
dream which will make glad the hearts of your enemies ; because 
it makes sorrowful your own." It is not an imprecation of what 
Daniel wished on the foes of the king, but a declaration of what 
the foes of the king would feel when they heard of the calamities 
he was about to suffer. Daniel then proceeds, " The tree that 
thou sowest, which grew, and was strong, whose height reached 
unto the heaven, and the sight thereof to all the earth ; whose 
leaves were fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat 
for all ; under which the beast of the field dwelt, and upon whose 
branches the fowls of the heaven had their habitation : it is thou, 
king, that art grown and become strong ; for thy greatness is 
grown, and reacheth unto heaven, and thy dominion to the end 
of the earth. And whereas the king saw a watcher and an holy 
one coming down from heaven, and saying, Hew the tree down, 
and destroy it; yet leave the stump of the roots thereof in the 
earth, even with a band of iron and brass, in the tender grass of 
the field ; and let it be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his 
portion be with the beasts of the field, till seven times pass over 
him ; this is the interpretation, king, and this is the decree of 
the Most High, which is come upon my lord the king : that they 
shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the 
beasts of the field, and they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, 
and they shall wet thee with the dew of heaven, and seven times 
shall pass over thee, till thou know that the Most High ruleth in 
the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will. And 
whereas they commanded to leave the stump of the tree roots ; 
thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee, after that thou shalt have 
known that the heavens do rule. Wherefore, king, let my 
counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by right- 
eousness, and thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor; if it 
may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity." 

After he had heard the interpretation, and undergone the sen- 
tence of degradation, king Nebuchadnezzar thus concludes his 
history: "And at the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted 
up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned 
unto me, and I blessed the Most High, and I praised and ho- 



PRIDE ABASED. 137 

noured him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting 
dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation : 
and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing : and 
he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and 
among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his 
hand, or say unto him, What doest thou ? At the same time 
my reason returned unto me; and for the glory of my kingdom, 
mine honour and brightness returned unto me; and my counsel- 
lors and my lords sought unto me; and I was established in my 
kingdom, and excellent majesty was added unto me. Now I 
Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of hea- 
ven, all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment: and 
those that walk in pride he is able to abase/' 

This closing epistle, addressed by the king Nebuchadnezzar to 
his subjects, breathes a quiet and a beautiful spirit, that indi- 
cates to my mind a change in his heart, a transformation of his 
character — a true and an actual conversion to God. We cannot 
but notice in this epistle, first the great humility by which it is 
characterized. The pride that provoked punishment is super- 
seded by humility, that owns its justice and gives glory to the 
God who punished him for his sins; and thus he shows that he 
felt his sin to be grievous, and his sentence to be just. You 
will notice, too, in the blessing which the king pronounces 
upon all mankind, such a wish as can be expected to proceed 
only from a Christian's heart. The fierce monarch is changed 
altogether. Instead of war, he prays for peace; the hand that 
wielded the sword is stretched forth in benediction; the lion, 
fierce and ravenous, is changed now into the lamb. He that 
blasphemed and defied the attributes of heaven, now submits 
like a weaned child, and owns the justice of his punishment; 
and prays that blessings, such as God alone can give, and 
monarchs cannot take away, may be bestowed upon all his sub- 
jects, and that all mankind may rejoice in the enjoyment of 
them. 

You will notice, too, another feature in the epistle of the king 
— namely, the missionary feeling and missionary sympathy that 
pervades it. He says, "I thought it good to show the signs and 
the wonders, and the might he had wrought," which is only 

12* 



138 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

another form of expressing what David said, when he cried, 
u Coine, all ye that fear Grod, and I will make known to you 
what he hath done for my soul." The king says, " I have seen 
the greatness, I have tasted the goodness of Grod. It is now 
my wish that all the people of my realm should see that I have 
done so; and learn that the Grod that they are to worship is no 
golden image, but the God who made the heaven and the earth, 
and whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom;" and thus the 
Babylonian throne became the Christian pulpit. The mighty 
monarch became the humble and the faithful missionary; and 
his epistle a sermon eloquent of wonders, of mercy, of righte- 
ousness, and of peace. Here, then, we have an evidence what 
grace can do; what transformations it can work; what results 
sanctified affliction can achieve; how blasphemies are turned into 
blessings, and the fierce despot into the meek and humble and 
submissive saint. And the same grace that changed the heart 
of the Babylonian monarch can and will change the heart of the 
most depraved of mankind. That grace, like the air of heaven, 
can enter by the smallest cranny, and can achieve by the small- 
est means the greatest possible results. It has found, and it will 
find, access into congress, divan, and cabinet, and family. It 
will find its way into the temple of Bramah, — into the mosque of 
Islam, — into the cathedral of the Romanist. Wherever there is 
a heart that beats, there grace can find a throne for its blessed 
supremacy. 

The dream of the king, which we have read, and which 
Daniel interpreted, was a beautiful one. A lofty tree was seen 
planted in the centre of the earth ; herds and cattle from a thou- 
sand hills enjoyed shelter beneath its branches, and the birds of 
the air built their nests amid its boughs. Such is the symbol 
of a prosperous and happy king. Nations dwelt beneath his 
sovereignty; families found peace beneath his sceptre; his king- 
dom was rooted in the hearts of his loyal subjects; a spectacle 
too magnificent for man long to enjoy elated the monarch's 
heart; drew out the corruption of his nature, and prompted the 
exclamation which brought down the vengeance of heaven : " Is 
not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the 
kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my 



PRIDE ABASED. 139 

majesty?" The instant that he utters these thoughts, the sen- 
tence is issued that fells the tree, deposes and degrades the 
monarch of whom that tree was the symbol. So true is it in 
every age, " I have seen the wicked great in power, and spread- 
ing himself as a green bay-tree; I passed by, and lo! he was 
not; I sought him, but he could not be found. " And again, 
God says, "All the trees of the field shall know that I, the 
Lord, have brought clown the high heart. ;; The catastrophe of 
the monarch is the result that is here foreshadowed in the hew- 
ing down of the tree. The sceptre is shattered in his hand. 
The mighty ruler is driven to herd with the lowest cattle — the 
monarch of that mighty kingdom goes out a wretched and an 
unreasoning monomaniac; the inmate of a palace becomes an 
inhabitant of the desert; he that ate king's meat feeds with the 
beasts of the field; and he whose brow wore a diadem that re- 
flected splendour upon a thousand kings, is naked and wetted with 
the dews of heaven. "Hew it down; cut away its branches; 
shake off its fruit." Thus there are two ways in which God can 
punish kings, just as there two ways in which he can punish 
their subjects. He can drive the monarch from his realm, as in 
the case of Nebuchadnezzar; or he can drive the kingdom from 
the monarch, as in the case of Belshazzar. So with the sub- 
jects, he can snatch the landlord from his estate, and place him 
at the judgment-seat; or he can snatch the estate from the land- 
lord, and leave him poor and friendless in the world. The one 
or the other of these results will follow whenever pride is in- 
dulged. It is a law as sure as that the sun shines by day, that 
pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. 
Let a church be proud and boast of itself, and that church will 
soon be laid low. Let a man become elated and exalted by a 
sense of his talents, and he will soon be brought down. Let a 
people glory in their wealth, or glory in their wisdom, or in any 
thing but Christ, and they will soon learn, that he who tries to 
steal a ray from the glory of God takes a withering curse in- 
wardly into his own bosom. 

Such, however, we find, is the goodness of God, that before 
he strikes he warns. And therefore Daniel says, " Moreover, 
king, let my counsel be acceptable before thee, and break off' thy 



140 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

sins by righteousness, and thy transgressions by showing mercy 
to the poor." In the Roman Catholic Bible this verse is trans- 
lated, "0 king, redeem thy sins by righteousness:" and hence, 
it is favourite text, quoted very frequently by them in order to 
show that good works have a propitiatory or atoning virtue. 
But the translation that they have adopted is obviously wrong. 
The word is, properly translated, " break off;" and what Daniel 
says to the king is equivalent to saying, " Cease to do evil; 
learn to do well; reverse the course you have token; show your 
repentance in the sight of God by your reformation in the sight 
of man. Be what you have failed to be; bring forth the fruits 
that you have not brought forth; pity the poor you have trodden 
under foot; abstain from the violence which peradventure has 
stained you." But it would be impossible for man, by any 
works of his own, to make atonement for himself; for u by 
deeds of law," we are told, " can no flesh be justified." If man 
could make atonement for man's sins, why was it necessary that 
God should become man, and should suffer and die, that his sins 
might be atoned for? But the idea is too absurd to require me 
to spend time in refuting it. 

Among the lessons we learn from this chapter, before we enter 
immediately on the elucidation of the text, the first is, that the 
end of all royal government is beautifully set forth by the symbol 
of a tree, giving shelter to some, a home to others, and protection 
to all. What should a nation's government be? A government 
that protects the weak and provides for the poor; that gives a 
shelter to the oppressed and diffuses the greatest possible amount 
of freedom and happiness among all. We learn in the next 
place, from God's hearing Nebuchadnezzar, that God hears the 
whisper in the royal cabinet as well as the groan of the oppressed 
in a miserable cellar. It is here stated that the king was walk- 
ing in his palace, and he said within himself, "Is not this great 
Babylon that I have built?" God hears the thought of the 
heart — a Thou, God, seest me," may be said by every individual 
here this evening. God's eye is just as closely riveted upon the 
heart of that young man or that young woman, as if that young 
man or young woman were the only individual in the whole uni- 
verse of God. There is not a thought that flutters in our hearts 



PRIDE ABASED. 141 

— tliere is not a purpose in them formed for to-morrow — there is 
not a secret spring of wickedness arising in any bosom— there is 
not a design that is cherished in the secrecy of any heart, that 
yon can hide from God — -from that eye that pierces the darkness 
— from that ear that hears in silence — from that God who will 
bring every secret thing to light, and judge according to the 
thoughts of the heart, the words of the mouth, and the deeds 
done in the body, whether they ba good, or whether they be 
evil. What a solemn consideration it is that those thoughts 
which you would wish to conceal from that person who sits be- 
side you in the pew, are known to God: and your schemes, 
plans, and imaginations that you would not disclose to a mother, 
to a husband, to a wife, to a child, to a friend, for the whole 
world, are known to him ! You wrap your mantle round you, 
and you say, "How close and how secret can I keep my coun- 
sel!" God's burning eye is fixed upon it all — that eye which 
sees and searches and penetrates all space, and reads clearly and 
legibly our inmost thoughts. "What an idea is this, that, in the 
judgment-day, man's secret thoughts will be set in the light of 
God's countenance! What a fearful spectacle for those that rise 
from the dead as lost souls, when they behold that terrible light 
which has no shadow, no relief, nothing to soften its intense bril- 
liancy, shining upon every thought in the past, every prospect in 
the future, every feeling in the present — a spectacle so fearful 
that the lost souls shall cry to the everlasting hills to hide them, 
and the great sea to shelter them from the wrath of the Lamb. 
And blessed, blessed indeed is that man's soul that can say, then 
and there, "I am guilty, but Jesus is my Saviour; I am a sinner, 
but that precious blood is my plea; I am lost in Adam, but retrieved 
in Christ : and I know that he to whom I have committed all will 
behold not me, for in me there is nothing worthy of love, but 
behold my substitute, and me in him, that died for me and 
became sin for me, that I might be made the righteousness of God 
in him." 

The king, we are told in this passage, was driven from his 
throne to wander with the beasts of the field, degraded and de- 
posed, as the appropriate penalty of his special sin. What was 
the king's special sin? Pride. What was God's providential 



142 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

punishment ? Degradation. Generally speaking, you may read 
your sin in the light of your punishment. Not always, but gene- 
rally speaking, the punishment is just the rebound of the sin. 
And if you will examine it very carefully in the light of God's 
truth, in the punishment or chastisement which you are now un- 
dergoing, you will probably be able to trace the reason why God 
has inflicted it. God sends the punishment, not simply to wean 
you from the way that is evil, but to reveal by the light of the 
furnace in which he places you, the sin that has seduced you, and 
drawn down' upon you, like the conductor, the lightning of God's 
judgment. Was not this the case with the recent pestilence 
that visited us ? In the punishment we saw one sin, at least, 
that brought it down — the neglect of the poor — the absence of 
all sanatory reform — one of the greatest social evils of the present 
day. We saw thus in our punishment the sin which, as a peo- 
ple, we had indulged. There were other sins, I dare say, many 
others; but this was one which the judgment directly pointed 
out to us. And I trust we shall show that the punishment has 
been sanctified to us, by every man in his place discharging man- 
fully the special duty to the poor that clearly devolves upon him. 

It is stated also, that the king acknowledged, after his punish- 
ment, that "God doeth according to his will in the army of 
heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth." God has not 
simply "prescience," but he has "purpose." It is not true 
simply that God foreknows what will come to pass; but, if the 
Bible speaks truth, as we know it does, he also purposes the 
event that is to take place. Prophecy is holy men becoming the 
amanuenses of God's truth; history is holy and unholy men be- 
coming the amanuenses of God's providence. God writes the 
prophecy in Scripture, and God fulfils the prophecy in history; 
and yet, when he does so, God is not the author of sin. God, 
though the author of all that is good, is not the author of any 
thing that is sinful: nor is man a mere automaton impelled 
irresistibly in its course; but he is a rational, reflecting, respon- 
sible being, deliberately choosing what he thinks to be best or 
most expedient for him. 

We learn another lesson from this history: that prosperity is a 
very dangerous position. It is not the man who has lost his 



PRIDE ABASED. 143 

property who is most likely to forget God; but the man who has 
obtained a fortune, or made a most successful speculation, or had 
left to him a large property. It is not the empty cup that we 
have any difficulty in holding; it requires the utmost nicety to 
balance the cup that is full to the brim. Adversity may depress; 
but prosperity elevates us to presumption. And if, as I have 
often told you, you ought to intimate that the prayers of the con- 
gregation are requested for a member of this church in deep 
affliction, you ought much oftener to say that the prayers of the 
congregation are requested for a member who has been visited 
with great prosperity. Depend upon it that the latter needs 
prayer just as much as the former. In the valleys, where all is 
shadow, we can walk securely. On the lofty pinnacle, where all 
is sunshine, we need a special power to keep us, a special arm to 
sustain us. If we take the experience of the church of Christ, 
we shall find that the man that draws closest to God has gene- 
rally had the least of the blessings of his providence. The Scotch 
fir-tree is, to my mind, the best symbol of the Christian. The 
least of earth is required for its roots; it finds nourishment in a 
dry soil and amid barren rocks, and yet, green in winter as in 
summer, it towers the highest of all the trees of the wood to- 
ward the sky, and with least of earth makes the greatest approach 
to heaven. So it is with the tree of God's planting : with the 
least of earth about its roots it towers the nearest to heaven ; de- 
riving nourishment, not from the earth below, but from the sun- 
beams that fall upon it, and the rain-drops that sprinkle it, 
supported by that hidden nourishment that comes from God. 

We learn from Daniel's address to the king, that a minister of 
the gospel ought to be faithful. Daniel told the king honestly 
the whole truth, and was not afraid. Truth needs not to be pre- 
faced with apology. If what the minister says be not true, no 
apology can palliate it; if it be true, an apology is not required. 
When the minister speaks God's blessed word, he ought to know 
but two classes — those that are sinners by nature, and those that 
are saved by grace. Whatever be their rank, their age, their 
wisdom, their renown, we have nothing to do with these — we 
have only to do with this, that they belong to that great category 
which has had so continuous a succession — the category of sin- 



144 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

ners; or to that blessed one that shall never fail — the company 
of God's faithful, redeemed, and regenerated people. 

We learn also from the experience of the monarch, the bless- 
ings of affliction. Nebuchadnezzar said, after his affliction, what 
he had never dreamed of submitting to think of before; and I 
have no donbt, he could say as sincerely as David said, "It is 
good for me that I have been afflicted." When God hides the 
sun by day, he reveals to us a thousand suns by night. It is in 
the dark that we see a vision which the day refuses to present to 
us. It is in afflictions that we learn lessons which we never 
could have learned in prosperity. And you know that on a sick- 
bed, in the moment of an expected wreck, in the hour of bitter 
and sorrowful bereavement, feelings were created, emotions felt, 
vows were' uttered, (and if they were uttered, do you hold to them 
still ?) resolutions cherished, that made you say, If it be bitter in 
experience to be afflicted, it is blessed in the result. The storms 
of winter, the frosts and winds of autumn, strip the tree of its 
foliage and clothe it with icicles; but it is while the tree is thus 
shaken and laid bare by the tempest that it strikes its roots deeper 
into the earth, seeking warmth and shelter below, as it loses 
warmth and shelter above. And then, next spring, it comes 
forth with greater energy, casts out its foliage with greater beau- 
ty, and is prepared to meet and master succeeding storms with 
far easier victory. So it is with the Christian : it is during the 
winter of affliction that he strengthens himself. 

But the great lesson we are to learn from this chapter, and 
which is the lesson inculcated in my text, is the last; it is a les- 
son which is precious indeed, and one which God has been incul- 
cating ever since the world began — "Those which walk in pride, 
God is able to abase." The whole history of God's dealings with 
mankind is a commentary on this text. Man once started on the 
wings of pride : he tried in Paradise to soar to heaven : his frail 
wings were dissolved by the blaze of that sun as he rose; he fell: 
the terrible retribution came : and he learned, in the cold projected 
shadow of the curse, that "them that exalt themselves, God is 
able to abase." And after man thus fell, we have to see whe- 
ther he learned in his ruin the lesson he would not learn in the 
time of his happiness, and in his state of innocence. Cain rose 



PRIDE ABASED. 145 

before God, and raised a fratricidal hand against his brother in 
the exercise of that very pride which had brought the curse into 
the world, and death, "and all our wo:" and Cain went forth 
with this inscription, legible to heaven, upon his scathed brow, 
" Them that walk in pride, God is able to abase. " 

After Cain, we read that the daughters of the sons of God 
united themselves with the sons of men; society was dissolved; 
profligacy overflowed; they set their faces against heaven, and 
and cried, "Who is Lord over us?" And God saw that the 
pride and wickedness of men were great; the windows of the 
heaven and the fountains of the earth were opened; the sky 
poured down rain, and earth poured out floods; and the ark, 
careering with its favoured exceptions on the crests of the 
waves, revealed the great truth which was here disclosed to 
Nebuchadnezzar, "Them that walk in pride, God is able to 
abase/' 

And even after this, while man had the remains of wrecks, 
and the evidences of restoration before him, instead of being 
humbled by the recollection of the past, and trustful in the God 
who saves the meek, they began to build a tower whose top 
should reach to the heaven, standing upon which they might 
laugh at such judgments, and defy the Almighty to his face. 
He breathed upon them, and each tongue spake confusion; no 
man understood what his fellow-labourer said; the work was ar- 
rested, the attempt failed, and man was again taught the truth 
he is so slow to learn, "Them that walk in pride, God is able to 



A new period came in the history of the world, and God re- 
solved to quell the pride that still oozed out, not instantly crush- 
ing man by the direct expression of stupendous power, but by 
the operation of the very sin of pride preparing and promoting 
the destruction of him who is its victim. We find in the his- 
tory of the world great kingdoms beginning to emerge, splendid 
palaces built, temples raised to Ashtaroth and Baal, and shrines 
to Isis and Osiris, throughout all the empires of the world; on 
which God makes the text actual, no longer by the sudden 
stroke of almighty power, but by the sure, though slow opera- 
tion of those very principles that have influenced the men them- 

13 



146 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

selves. For Nebuchadnezzar, and Belshazzar, and Cyrus, and 
Alexander, and Csesar, all found, though they were not smitten 
down by the thunderbolt because of their pride, yet that the 
higher they soared, only the deeper and the more disastrously 
did they fall : and never did nation succeed in writing on the 
productions of its wisdom or on the expressions of its power, " I 
sit as a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow," and, 
" I am the eternal city, and of my kingdom there shall be no 
end," before another hand shot through the cloud and inscribed 
below man's inscription and prophesy of eternity for himself, 
God's record of the doom he should suffer, "Mene, mene, tekel, 
upharsin," " Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found 
wanting." And ever as man said, "I will ascend to heaven, 
and fix my throne amid the stars of God," — wherever that was 
said and the attempt made, we see no longer the glorious proces- 
sion of splendour, of power, and of victory, but the funeral pro- 
cession that moves slowly and sadly to the tomb. And, in the 
history of the world, as often as great systems have arisen, 
which have thrust out God and put in man, the same great 
result has invariably followed. What is Mohammedanism? A 
compound of Christianity, Judaism, and heathenism, all tending to 
glorify an ambitious impostor, and to dishonour God. The dried 
Euphrates, the waning crescent, all are teaching, and will teach 
soon with tremendous power, "Them that walk in pride, God is 
able to abase." And what is Popery? The magnifying of the 
priest till he takes the place of God, and sits in the temple of 
God, showing himself as if he were God, and professing him- 
self to be the Vicar of Christ. And what is said of him? 
" Whom the Lord will consume with the spirit of his mouth, and 
destroy with the brightness of his coming," that it may be seen 
that that church which boasts itself eternal is most temporary, 
and that he who sits as if he were the Lord in the temple is but 
an usurper of a throne that belongs not to him, and the wearer 
of assumptions which are only blasphemy in him that assumes 
them. Let it be the autocrat on his throne, or the mob in the 
ayopa; let it be Nebuchadnezzar in his palace, or antichrist in 
his temple, it is God's great law — sure as the heavens, lasting as 
his word, — that "them that walk in pride, God is able to abase." 



I>RIDE ABASED. 147 

The loftiest cedar of Lebanon shall be smitten down; the high- 
est oaks of Bashan God is able to uproot. He has brought 
down the mighty from their seats, and exalted the humble and 
meek. 

We read what are some of the elements of human pride in 
that beautiful passage in Jeremiah: "Let not the wise man 
glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his 
might; let not the rich man glory in his riches." And wherever 
there is glorying in these — be it a church — be it a nation — be it 
a family — be it an individual, they will be sure to find them- 
selves soon abased. Man is not to be proud of his wisdom : but 
we generally find that the man who has least wisdom is the most 
proud of the little he possesses; as if, conscious of its emptiness, 
and feeling it would collapse, he hugs it the closer, and makes 
the most of it. Is it not too true, that many a man would rather 
be called a knave than be thought a fool? Power is another 
source of pride. Has not philosophy its Nebuchadnezzar as well 
as political power? Satan is very aptly described by Milton, as 
saying, 

" Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven;" 

and have we not met with many a one who had rather be the 
head of the village than a subject in the metropolis? Such is 
man's lust of power; and wherever such love of power is, there 
it will be brought down. Need I tell you that man is proud of 
wealth? Money is the idol of the nineteeenth century. The 
banker's pen is more powerful now than the warrior's sword or 
the statesman's policy. It is not cabinets, but banks, that re- 
solve the fixity and the downfall of kingdoms. It is the stroke 
of the banker's pen, not the blow of the general's sword, that 
determines who shall conquer. Camillus of old cast his sword 
into the scale when the conflict was dubious: it is now the 
money-lender, who casts his money-bags into the scale, and deter- 
mines which nation shall be great. All the difference between 
the mammon-worshipper of the present day and the golden 
image-worshipper of Nebuchadnezzar consists in this, that Ne- 
buchadnezzar dug his gold from earth, melted and moulded it 
into a golden image, and caused the people, by the sound of mu- 



148 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

sic, to fall down and worship it; and now man digs gold from the 
mine, stamps it into coins, and, by appealing to the lusts and 
affections of the human heart, making these the sweet music to 
entice, he causes men to fall down and worship. But whenever 
man thus puts wisdom, or wealth, or power, in the room of God, 
or, believing in God, is proud of the one or the other, he will 
learn — by the terrible penalty which, if he be an unconverted 
man, is purely penal, but if he be a Christian, by a blessed chas- 
tisement that is purely paternal — that "them that walk in pride, 
God is able to abase." 

I might allude to other forms of pride that God can, and will, 
surely abase. The careless sinner, who thinks nothing of God, 
and cares nothing about his soul, walks in perilous pride upon the 
brink of an awful precipice. The self-righteous man, who thinks 
his own righteousness good enough for God, and Christ's right- 
eousness too worthless to be accepted by him, walks in pride. The 
worldly-minded man, whose living is the lust of the eyes, the lust 
of the flesh, and the pride of life — walks in pride ; and God will 
abase him. Pride is not the monopoly of those that ride in cha- 
riots and wear crowns and coronets. Pride grows in a cellar as 
well as in a royal palace. It is an indigenous weed. It is not 
the composition of the idol that makes the idolatry, but it is the 
devotion that is given by the heart to that idol, whether it be 
wood, or brass, or stone. There may be pride where there is but 
a single sovereign, greater than where there are a thousand. There 
may be pride in the possession of a single acre, greater and more 
hateful to God, than in the possession of a thousand acres. And 
where it exists, we learn from our text, and from all experience, 
none can bring it down but one. All the miracles of Moses failed 
to bring down the pride of Pharaoh : all the preaching down and 
denouncing of pride by the most eloquent preacher that ever 
spoke, will fail to abase the pride of a single individual in his au- 
dience. The wind may beat upon the icicle ; the storm and the 
tempest may smite it; the earthquake may split it; the avalanche 
may descend, and send it thundering down into the valley below, 
but only the sunbeam can thaw and melt it. Nothing can subdue 
the pride of man's heart but God — God, in the rays of the gos- 
pel. Experience will never do it. How true is it that, often as 



PRIDE ABASED. 149 

we have found cistern upon cistern, that we have laboriously dug, 
to be empty, we look for other cisterns still ? How is it, that of- 
ten as we find flower after flower to fade and wither the instant that 
we touch it, yet we seek after other flowers still ? How is it, that 
after joy on joy has been pursued, and has perished the instant 
that we grasped it, we yet still seek after joys that bloom not 
upon the tree of time, but only upon the tree that is in the midst 
of the paradise of God ? It is because we do not like to be indebted 
to another. Man would like to save himself, justify himself, regene- 
rate himself, glorify himself, and sing songs of praise throughout 
eternity "to rue that loved myself, and washed myself, and redeemed 
myself, and glorified myself; unto me be glory and honour, and 
blessing and praise !" What is all the gospel but just Grod hum- 
bling the heart ? What is justification ? God laying your glory 
in the dust, and placing the greatest philanthropist and the great- 
est criminal on the same dead level of sin and condemnation ; that 
when they have learned where sin has laid them, they may be 
clothed with and exalted by the righteousness of Christ, and glory 
in his name all the day long, and realize this blessed experience, 
that when we begin to exalt God, God will begin to exalt us. 
What is regeneration, but God's Holy Spirit revealing to man 
what is in his own real nature, and that his flowers are weeds, his 
gold is dim — nay, worse than dim, worthless ; that his sins are 
his own, and they should humble him ; that his graces are not 
his own, and they should humble him also ) and that he can no 
more change his own heart than he can, by any concentration of 
his physical powers, or combined action of his muscles, lift him- 
self from the earth a single foot ? When God has thus humbled 
man, and convinced him that he has no holiness .and no grace of 
himself, then he will exalt him. The man whose heart has been 
renewed only by baptism, will praise the priest ; but the man whose 
heart has been renewed and regenerated by the Spirit of God, will 
magnify and praise the Lord alone, and from the first bud to the 
next blossom, and the last fruit of a holy life, he will give all the 
glory unto God. 

Do I speak to any here that are proud ? This passion is in us 
all : it is human nature ; it is the secret of many of our miscar- 
ryings : it is the cause of most of our failures. You say you do 

13* 



150 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

not like to be humble : nobody does like to be humble. Man 
does not like to be humbled before a brother, but he likes much 
less to be humbled before himself; the instinctive pride that is in 
him rebelling against the humility that sweeps his foundation of 
self-sufficiency from beneath him. But if this pride be not abased 
in mercy, it will be abased in judgment. Think of the goodness, 
the mercy, the forgiveness of God, that, so thinking, you may be 
humble. Think of what human nature is \ that the greatest 
criminal who commits the most enormous crime, and perishes on 
the scaffold on account of it, is an alter ego, another self, actuated 
by the same passions, only in their full burst, flow, and develop- 
ment ; and that, except for the grace of God, that criminal might 
have been myself. Think of this, that you may be humble be- 
fore God. But if you wish to be humbled in the very dust, read 
those thrilling words, " God so loved me, that he gave his only- 
begotten Son to die for me I" See what my redemption cost ! 
See what a penalty my sin demanded ! See what my ruin is, by 
the height from which the Saviour came, and the depth to which 
the Saviour sank ! and when you have looked at that cross, and 
listened to that suffering cry, and beheld that completed sacrifice, 
and that unbounded love, oh ! then such grace — such love — such 
mercy, will expel pride from the stubborn heart of man ; and it 
will do what judgment, what affliction, what preaching, what ex- 
perience has failed to do — it will cause you to abase yourself in 
the sight of the Lord, that he may lift you up, and so you may 
be exalted in due time. 

Pray for that Holy Spirit which alone can melt the proud heart ; 
and when it has changed and regenerated that heart, then, in 
lowliness upon earth, you will bless him, and on a throne of glory 
in heaven, you will magnify him ; and thank God throughout all 
eternity that you have learned in mercy, the truth which so many 
have learned in judgment — " Them that walk in pride, God is 
able to abase. " 



151 



LECTURE XI. 

THE SCEPTRE OF GOD. 

"Thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee, after that thou shalt have known that 
the heavens do rule." — Daniel iv. 26. 

Nebuchadnezzar u learned that the heayens do rule/' as we 
see in this acknowledgment, made after he was restored to his 
mind. The prediction was that the tree, the symbol of his ma- 
jesty, should be cut down ; and he who was symbolized by that 
tree should be driven forth to herd with the beasts of the field, 
and there to suffer degradation and shame till he learned the les- 
son that he had forgotten, that " God reigns," or, to use the lan- 
guage of the text, " that the heavens do rule." And you will 
perceive that after he was restored he says, in verse 3, " How 
great are his signs ! and how mighty are his wonders !" and then 
here is what he had learned : " His kingdom is an everlasting 
kingdom, and his dominion is from generation to generation/' 
He learned the lesson, and he expressed it after he was restored 
to his mind, that it was not his sceptre that controlled the worlds, 
but the sceptre of Him whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, 
and whose dominion endureth from generation to generation. 
The proposition I should wish to illustrate is, that "God reigns," 
u that the heavens do rule;" and in endeavouring to do so, I will 
look first at some of the difficulties that lie in the way of our ac- 
knowledgment of this fact. There is nothing that man is more 
prone to dispute than the living, ever-present, ever-active supre- 
macy of God. There is an universal belief that God was, there 
is a very faint belief that God is : there is an impression among 
some that God made the world, and then left the machinery to 
go on after he had wound it up ; and that since he made it he 
has retired from the world, and left it to the dominion of what 
philosophers call second causes — what infidels call accidents. 



152 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

Now then, let us look at some of the difficulties that lie in our 
way, and I will try as I am able very briefly to explain them. 

First, how can we reconcile the entrance of sin with the ex- 
istence, the supremacy, and the rule of God ? If you ask men, 
Does God govern the world ? they answer, " Yes." But how is 
it compatible with the government of a wise, a merciful, an om- 
nipotent God, that such an intruder, such a foul disturber of the 
harmony of the world as sin, should have been allowed to inter- 
polate itself, and occasion apostasy, rebellion, and discord in his 
suffering, wide dominions ? The entrance of sin is not the dis- 
closure of revelation, but the disclosure of history, of experience, 
and of fact. It is not the Christian alone who is called upon to 
explain why sin is come into the world, but the skeptic himself. 
He admits the existence and the reign of a God : he must admit 
the fact of the presence, and the disturbing power of sin. If 
there be a difficulty, it is a difficulty also at the door of the skeptic, 
as broad and as palpable as that which lies at the door of the 
Bible Christian. But we may look at it in a light in which it 
may appear at least not to have been God's fault, if I may reve- 
rently use the expression, that sin has entered the world. He 
made man perfectly free and unfettered, with every bias to good, 
and with no bias to evil ; with every inducement to retain his 
allegiance, with every possible dissuasive against the violation of 
that allegiance. He gave him genius to originate — a heart to 
love — a conscience, the realm of right and of wrong ; and, of ne- 
cessity, placed him under a law, because, if there be no law, there 
can be no lawgiver, there can be no subject; and, if no subject, 
of course no supreme governor. * By the very nature of the crea- 
ture's constitution, the creature must be placed under law. Now 
when he placed Adam under law, God might by his omnipotence 
have prevented him from stretching forth his hand to touch the 
forbidden fruit. But it does not follow that because he might 
have prevented him, therefore he ought to have prevented him. 
It may be — nay, we are sure it must be — that more grand and 
magnificent results will yet be evolved from the wrecks of Para- 
dise than ever could have been reflected from it, if it had retained 
its glory undismantled and unshorn, even to the age in which we 
now live. And to show how fallacious is the argument, that be- 



THE SCEPTRE OF GOD. 153 

cause God could have prevented man, therefore he ought to have 
done so, I may observe, man has it in his power to destroy him- 
self; he may throw himself over a precipice, or cast himself into 
the sea : God might, by the exercise of omnipotence, have ren- 
dered this impossible : but then the very impossibility of it would 
have reflected deeper discredit on the creature ; for the creature 
would not have been a free and unshackled being, in which he 
glories as his dignity, but an automaton — a piece of machinery, 
moved by extraneous impulses, without a will to determine, a 
conscience to feel, or a judgment to reflect. Or, to use another 
illustration, if a man goes to put his hand into the fire, God tells 
that man, by the experience of others, and by the exercise of his 
reason, " If you put your hand into the fire you will burn it and 
suffer pain." That is the plan he has adopted : he might have 
taken the plan you propose, and by the fiat of omnipotence have 
rendered it a physical impossibility for the man to burn his hand. 
But he has not done so : he has shown man that if he puts his hand 
in the fire it is sure to be burned; and man, knowing what the 
effect of the act will be, is thus deterred from the commission of 
it. Such was the case with Adam in Paradise. God did not 
draw back his arm by a physical restraint from touching the for- 
bidden fruit; but he told man, " If you touch that fruit you bring 
death into the world and all your wo ; it rests with you, as a free 
and responsible being, to touch it and perish, or to abstain and 
live for ever." Do we not then thus " vindicate the ways of God 
to man/' and show that by permitting sin, not sending it, he 
treated man as a rational and responsible being, and that man 
could not have been placed, as far as we can see, in circumstances 
more favourable to obedience, compatibly with the dignity of his 
own nature, or in circumstances more calculated to set forth the 
wisdom, the beneficence, the love, the holiness, and the justice 
of him who rules in the heavens, and constituted man once his 
vicegerent upon earth ? 

Another difficulty in recognising the truth contained in my 
text, that God lives and reigns, consists in the fact that the pre- 
sent generation is often found to suffer for the sins of the past, 
and that the children of to-day inherit the consequences of the 
sins of their fathers of yesterday, and of former generatioDS. If 



154 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

this be very difficult to reconcile with, the fact that G-od reigns, 
let it be remembered it is not a text in the Bible only, but it 
is a fact in the history of mankind; it is not asserted in the 
Bible only that it shall be so, but it is proved to our senses, and 
is legible in the chronicles of every land, that it actually is so. 
And therefore, if it be difficult to reconcile it with the truth that 
God reigns, it is a difficulty that the skeptic must feel just as 
strongly as the Christian ; but the Christian alone will try to 
show that possibly there are in this fact — that children suffer for 
the father's sins — lessons of the greatest possible goodness and 
practical value. May it not be to teach us that we have an inte- 
rest in all that are around us, and that the well-being of our child 
should be as precious to us as our own ? that man is a work not 
for himself only, but for others ? that if a man sin, the rebound 
of his sin will be felt, not only in himself, but in his children and 
his children's children to the third and fourth generations ? This 
great fact is fitted to make men feel, by reasons the most pressing 
and the most powerful, that it is their interest, and the interest 
of their offspring, that they should live soberly, righteously, and 
godly. And what seems to be a hardship is really a mercy, fitted 
to arouse all man's feelings against sin, and to lead him by the 
deepest instincts of his nature to guard against that which will 
not only ruin himself, but transmit suffering, and pain, and tribu- 
lation to the third and fourth generation of his descendants. 

Another fact that occurs in the government of Grod, very dif- 
ficult at first sight to reconcile with the fact of that government, 
is the strange procedure which sends one sinner to punish an- 
other, and one wrong-doer to avenge the misconduct and the 
crimes of another. For instance, Napoleon was employed or 
commissioned to punish the sins of profligate Europe; and at an 
earlier epoch, Cyrus, to execute judgment upon Babylon; and, at 
a period later than the last, Titus and Vespasian and the Roman 
sword, to punish the disobedience and the gross transgressions of 
his people Israel. It is asked, How can you reconcile this with 
the fact that G-od reigns, when he might himself punish by the 
direct interposition of his hand ? Does it not seem incompatible 
with our conceptions of his holiness, that he should employ men 
so profligate to execute his purposes, which are in themselves so 



THE SCEPTRE OE GOD. 155 

pure? That he does so is not a declaration of Scripture only, 
but it is a chapter in the history of every nation upon earth : God 
says himself, "0 Assyrian, the rod of mine anger; I will send 
him against an hypocritical nation, against the people of my 
wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil and to take the 
prey, and to tread them down as the mire in the streets." May 
it not be to teach men this yet more effectually than if God had 
interposed by a direct manifestation of his own right hand, that 
when sinners have ceased to rely upon God it is folly to rely 
upon one another? May it not be to teach mankind that no 
conspiracy of wicked men, however great, and however secretly 
concocted, is without an element of internal destruction, disor- 
ganization, and decay? If all men in the world could form a 
conspiracy that would last, it would be a very formidable thing; 
but history shows us that if bad men combine, there are elements 
of disorganization and ruin in the combination, so real and so 
active, that before many years have swept over the conspiracy, 
one will rise up against the other, and that which was designed 
to dethrone the Almighty, will end in the destruction of those 
that concocted it. 

A very difficult thing to reconcile with the doctrine that God 
reigns, is the fact that infants die. But this fact is not only de- 
clared in the Bible, but it is proved in every page of the chroni- 
cles of every family as well as of every land. Infants do die, 
though free from actual transgression ; this is matter of fact ; and 
there may be in that occurrence not what is inconsistent with the 
reign of God, but what is eminently calculated to make that reign 
more palpable to man's mind. The babes die to teach us that 
original sin is an actual thing, and to show that some terrible 
disaster has fallen upon all mankind, which blights the flower 
that has just budded and bloomed to-day, as well as the gray- 
haired sire, on whose head the snows of threescore years and ten 
have fallen. And if it be true, that all babes who die in infancy 
are without exception saved, as true I believe it to be, then it is 
not cruelty to the babes, — it is making it a missionary to the 
parents, and teaching a lesson which man would deny if only 
actual sinners were cut off, and babes who have never sinned 
were universally spared. 



158 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

We see every day the fact, that parents are taken from their 
children in the midst of their lives, and their offspring cast de- 
pendent on the wide world. This appears to us a cruel thing, 
and we wonder how it is possible to reconcile it with the provi- 
dential government of God. Yet there may he lessons latent in 
it which we do not see; it may he to teach the parents to work 
while it is called to-clay ? and discharge to their offspring the duties 
that they owe, not knowing how long the opportunity may be 
given them; and thus to make parental instruction more earnest, 
and parental duties more faithfully discharged, because there is 
ever present a deep sense of the possibility of the severance of 
ties so beautiful and divine, and the loss of the opportunity of 
giving those instructions which shall be the happiness of the 
child upon earth, and its yet greater and richer happiness in 
glory. 

Another difficulty in receiving the truth that God reigns, is 
the fact that vice and dishonesty are sometimes prosperous and 
triumphant, while piety and goodness are sometimes depressed. 
It is so ; the Bible says that it will be so ; but it also explains 
the reason why. This is not the dispensation of absolute justice. 
In hell the wicked universally suffer; in heaven the holy are 
universally happy. In this world the two parties are mingled, 
and we see sometimes bad men prosper and sometimes good men 
suffer. But if all good men prospered upon earth, then men 
would profess religion for the sake of its temporal benefits ; if 
good men, on the other hand, always suffered upon earth, men 
might be deterred from joining the ranks of Christianity, because 
it would be joining the ranks of martyrs. But, under the provi- 
dence of God, good men sometimes suffer and sometimes prosper, 
and we are thus taught to cleave to the gospel because it is the 
mind of G-od, and to accept duty because it is duty, and not on 
account of the temporal rewards to which it may conduct us, or 
the temporal penalties from which it may possibly save us. The 
tares and the wheat grow in the same field ; it is right that they 
should thus grow together till the harvest; and whenever the 
effort is made to separate them now, it ends in the injury of the 
wheat, and not the rooting up permanently of the tares. 

Another great difficulty which occurs in receiving the great 



THE SCEPTRE OF GOD. 157 

truth that the heavens do rule, is the lengthened lives of many 
bad men, and the short lives and premature deaths of really good 
and devoted men. For instance, Yoltaire lived to upward of 
eighty; Paine to a considerable age; Napoleon passed the meri- 
dian of life : if Yoltaire, Paine, and Napoleon had perished in 
their cradles, how much mischief would the world have escaped ! 
how much injury and suffering would mankind have been spared ! 
and, on the other hand, we argue, if such men as Cecil, and 
Howell, and Newton, and Edward Bickersteth, and Chalmers had 
been spared to eighty, ninety, or one hundred years of age, what 
blessings would the world have reaped thereby! So we natu- 
rally infer ; but if we could lift the curtain and see the reasons 
that are behind it, we should find that there were good reasons 
why Yoltaire should be spared to eighty, and Bickersteth should 
be cut off at sixty; and reasons, perhaps, that are more connected 
with the real well-being of man, and with the glory of God, than 
we are at first disposed to believe. One lesson taught us by the 
fact that good men perish early is, that we must be more active; 
their mantles are bequeathed to us — the places they have vacated 
are for us to fill ; and it becomes us, therefore, ever as the good 
and the great fall like fruits that are ripe from the tree of life, to 
take their place and enter upon their duties, and try, however 
feebly, by the grace of that God who gives his strength to the 
weak and his grace to all that ask it, to supply to mankind 
the great loss they have sustained by the departure of men so 
good, so beneficent, and so useful. Besides, when we look at 
these things, we are apt to think only of this world ; but when 
God called Bickersteth to himself, and said to him, " Come up 
hither," it was because Bickersteth' s work in this world was 
finished, and God had work for him to do in a higher, a better, 
and a nobler world, whence he shall no more be removed. We 
look at matters selfishly when we think of this world only, and 
forget that there are other worlds where there may be sublime 
missions to be discharged still; and that those men have not 
ceased to labour, but have only laid aside the robe of the Levite 
who ministers outside the vail, to put on the sacred vestments of 
the priest, to minister before the altar, and in the Holy of Holies 
for ever and ever. 

14 



158 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

There is another thought too, that occurs to us as a difficulty in 
recognising the government of God — the afflictions of the people 
of God. Why do we see them suffer ? why do we see them be- 
reaved, deprived of their property, afflicted with disease, laid 
aside? Why is this? There are good reasons for it; and some 
of these the Bible gives us. "It is good for me/' says one, "that 
I was afflicted ;" another says, "Our light affliction, which is but 
for a moment, worketk out for us a far more exceeding, and eter- 
nal weight of glory.'" Human nature, like the sons of Zebeclee, 
would like to sit on the right hand and on the left hand of the 
Saviour, but we do not want to drink of the Saviour's cup. Yet 
he fixes the dispensation that suits us; and God, who superin- 
tends the action of the dispensation, will take care that our afflic- 
tions shall not be too great, nor too many, nor too heavy, nor too 
long, as Satan would like them; nor too light, nor too few, nor 
too short, as we should like them; but that they shall be just 
what is most expedient for us, conducive to our good, and illus- 
trative of his glory. 

It is thus that I have pointed out some of the difficulties tha' 
lie in the way of our accepting the truth contained in the text ; 
that the "heavens do rule." And I have tried to show, or 
rather to suggest, that there may be good reasons, though we 
cannot see them all, why all that man supposes to be irreconcila- 
ble with the sceptre and supremacy of God, may not only be re- 
concilable with it, but may be also calculated to cast greater glory 
upon his name, and to diffuse more extensive blessings among 
all the children of God scattered throughout the world. Let us 
then, in looking at the fact that "God rules," remember that he 
has designs of ultimate good to us and of ultimate glory to him- 
self, which it may be most important for us to see worked out in 
the world. For instance, God suffers sin to develop itself upon 
earth into crimes and horrible calamities. He may be doing so, 
not because he hates us, for that he does not, nor because he 
would punish the guilty criminal — that will be a very minor rea- 
son — but because this earth on which we live is the great lesson- 
book of the universe; and it may be that the inhabitants of 
sister orbs and of sister stars may be grouped in gazing clusters 
around this distant spot in the universe, and may be looking 



THE SCEPTRE OF GOD. 159 

down and seeing, beyond the reach of its contagion, what terri- 
ble issues are treasured up in that terrible thing sin, and what it 
would do if all the restrictions were withdrawn, and it were left 
to create on earth, and to work out that hell, which it has 
wrought out in some sequestered place in the world, where the 
worm never dies, and the fire is not quenched. 

It may be we are apt to form conclusions that certain things 
are irreconcilable with the government of God, from our only 
seeing a portion of their action. If you see only the foundation 
of a house, you ought not thence to judge what will be the 
splendour of its superstructure: if you read the title-page of a 
book, you ought not, as many do, to say, the book is a false book, 
or a bad book, because you have only read the title-page : and if 
you see but some of the outside and less significant machinery 
of Providence, and cannot see the inner machinery which is with 
himself, the spring, and the issue, it is not right to judge of 
what things are, by the partial and defective view we are able to 
obtain of them. Take, for instance, the history of Joseph; 
when you saw Joseph cast into the pit, sold to the merchants, 
accused of an offence by the wife of Potiphar, thrown into a 
dungeon; one would have said, if you had stopped there and 
seen no further, "What an unfortunate lad is that! excel- 
lent in his character, he seems to be the most unfortunate in 
life." But if you could have lived to see him at the right hand 
of Pharaoh — if you could have lived to see him save his nation 
from destruction, and ultimately triumph over all his trials, — 
you would have said, How wonderful in working is that God 
who overrules the passions of man, restrains his wrath, and 
makes the remainder of it to praise him ! And how rashly do we 
often judge. 

Again, when we reflect on such scenes as the French Revolu- 
tion of 1792, to take the most dreadful one, you cannot under- 
stand how it could be that, if there be a God that ruleth in hea- 
ven, men should have been so left to themselves by that God, 
and within his dominions, as to perpetrate the crimes which can 
barely be mentioned, and the murders and atrocities which the 
historian is scarcely able to enumerate. But now that we have 
seen what it was, and have learned what lessons were to be de - 



160 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

duced from it, we can show that it was first to punish the profli- 
gacy of an eminently profligate people; and, secondly, it was to 
prove what a people can do and will do that has cast off God; 
and it was next to teach us that the experiment has been tried, 
and in every case turned out not merely a failure, but absolute 
destruction to them that made it, that the world cannot be car- 
ried on without religion : and that society cannot cohere without 
God; in the words of Robespierre, the sanguinary despot of that 
terrible era, "If there be not a God, we must make one, in order 
to make society hold together/ 7 The atheist in his blasphemy 
proclaimed God almost as distinctly as the Christian who says, 
a God reigns, and the heavens do rule." 

In the next place, we have to learn too, in looking at all these 
difficulties, that God, in dealing with mankind, and in ruling 
over them, does not contemplate in his dealings one generation, 
but successive generations. We see one whole generation suffer, 
and we think it incompatible with the goodness of God : but if 
we look to the next generation we shall discover that the suffer- 
ings of the first were preparing the soil for seeds to be cast into 
it, which were designed to grow up and ripen into precious har- 
vests of happiness and peace to future ones. In order, there- 
fore, to judge of God's designs, and of the wisdom and goodness 
of his government, you must look, not at one particular genera- 
tion, but at all the generations of mankind, and be content to 
discover that your sufferings in the present may grow up and 
burst into blessings lasting as the stars, for generations that are 
yet to follow you. 

And in the next place, we must view all that God does in 
this world in connection with another world. Recollect that 
this world is but the pilgrimage through which we are passing, 
and the next world is the home to which we are going; and 
what seems irreconcilable with God's government, when beheld 
in the light of this world, may be seen to be not only reconcila- 
ble with it, but richly illustrating its beneficence and wisdom, 
when viewed in the light of that future world for which God is 
preparing his people, and toward which they are journeying as 
strangers and pilgrims through this present world. This world 
is but a nook — a little tiny nook — in the vast domains over 



THE SCEPTRE OF GOD. 161 

which God's sceptre stretches. If it were possible to conceive 
of a fly being endowed with the faculty of reason for a moment 
— and if that fly were crawling about the cornice of one of the 
pillars of St. Peter's cathedral, it might perhaps say, "What a 
paltry, contemptible place this is ! these cornices seem to be do- 
ing no good; what is the use of them? what a mean little place 
it is, and how unworthy of the architect who planned it?" We 
should say, if we heard its reasoning, it was the smallness of the 
insect, and the limited nature of the horizon of its vision, which 
made it think what it saw to be so small and insignificant, and 
its not understanding that the cornice of the pillar could no 
more be dispensed with than the dome or the roof of the cathe- 
dral, being part and parcel of one great design, and in harmony 
with all that was about it. We are just like that fly in this 
respect, perched upon some little pinnacle in some little nook of 
this little world, where we venture to pronounce upon the whole 
from our very limited experience of a part, forgetting that our 
ignorance should make us humble, and our knowledge that God 
reigns should make us trust that all will be wisely, beneficently, 
and graciously arranged. 

I have thus then looked at some of the objections to this 
truth. Let me now notice some positive facts tending to prove 
that the heavens do rule; and that while God does thus rule, 
there is every reason to believe, both from Scripture and experi- 
ence, that his rule is wise, and good, and merciful, and gracious. 

In the first place, God is infinitely wise : we are quite certain, 
therefore, that what he does must be the result of infinite wis- 
dom. Admit the fact that God reigns in the atom as well as in 
the fixed star — that God moves with the current of the tiny 
stream as much as he rides upon the whirlwind, and sails upon 
the waves of the desert sea : admit that God is in all the wind- 
ings of individual private life, as well as the cataracts and floods 
and storms of public and of social life — and then recollect, that 
the God who thus controls all, is infinitely wise, and you may be 
satisfied that there is no risk of a blunder, there is no possibility 
of a mistake, there is nothing done by God that will need to be 
undone, that, in short, there is no dispensation, from Adam to 

14* 



162 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

the present hour, that is not associated with and superintended 
by a wisdom that cannot err. 

Recollect, in the next place, that God is infinitely good. That 
goodness is dimly shadowed forth in nature ; it is clearly expressed 
in the gospel — " God so loved the world, that he gave his only- 
begotten Son." The gift of Christ is the measure of God's good- 
ness. Let us pause at that text : it is not said, " God so loved 
the world that he permitted his Son to come and die for the 
world :" that would have been great love ) but " God so loved the 
world that he gave his Son." Christ is the donative of God, the 
expression and the measure of God's infinite love ) the truth is, 
not that " God loves us because Christ died for us ;" but it is 
" that God so loved us that Christ died for us :" Christ is not the 
cause of God's love to us, but he is the expression of God's love 
to us. And this is a beautiful thought, which seems to me so 
precious, that the death of my Saviour is not only a channel 
through which God's love can reach me consistently with his jus- 
tice, but it is also evidence to me that God loved me from ever- 
lasting, and will love me to the end; and it is the proof to me 
that when I am admitted into heaven, I shall not be admitted there 
simply as the convict who has been pardoned, and to be treated 
and tolerated in heaven as such, but it is the evidence to me that 
I shall be welcomed into heaven as the reconciled and accepted son, 
amid the hosannas and acclamations of angels and of archangels, 
and that I shall be there as a son in the presence of a father, not 
as a forgiven criminal in the presence of a judge who barely tole- 
rates him there. " God so loved us that he gave his Son." If 
this be so, then, not only is there infinite wisdom, but there is in- 
finite love ) and therefore the nature of God's government in the 
world is not only so wise as to prevent all possibility of mistake 
or error, but it is so good that it precludes the interposition of 
ill-will, revenge, or enmity, of any sort or of any degree. 

In the next place, God, who governs the world, is " omnipo- 
tent." We may therefore be sure, that whatever his wisdom de- 
vises, or his love inspires, his power will execute. We are sure, 
therefore, that what the Psalmist says, when he thus describes the 
power of God, is borne out by history : " Lord of hosts, who is 



THE SCEPTRE OF GOD. 163 

a strong Lord like unto thee, or to thy faithfulness round about 
thee ? Thou rulest the raging of the sea ; when the waves thereof 
arise, thou stillest them. Justice and judgment are the habitation 
of thy throne : mercy and truth shall go before thy face." He 
is, in the language of the apostle, " able to keep us from falling, 
and to present us faultless before the presence of his glory with 
exceeding joy." 

And, in the last place, the God who rules the world in wisdom 
and in love, and with omnipotent power, is described to be an un- 
changeable God. If G-od were a changeable being, we could 
have no confidence in his government at all; if God were a 
changeable God, who would retract to-day what he said yesterday, 
the Bible would be the most worthless of all the books upon earth, 
because how could I know that he would adhere to the promises 
he has made, or how could I know that the truth he had stated 
he will not reverse ? And therefore the immutability of God is 
the crowning point ; for his wisdom, his love, his power, his faith- 
fulness, his truth, are fixed, as the heavens, and immutable for 
ever. And so it is in creation. The very facts that men quote 
as the evidences that God does not reign, are just the very facts 
that I would quote as the evidence that God does reign. For in- 
stance, the fact is that water shall run down hill : men say, that 
is the law of water, and therefore it can do so without God. It 
is the fact, for instance, that fire burns ; and they say that is the 
combination of the oxygen of the atmosphere with carbon, 
whereby flame is produced; that is the law, and therefore we 
need not admit a God to explain the phenomenon. The conti- 
nuity of the fact may give it the name of a law, but it does not 
the less prove it is the action of Deity. If these things were not 
always so, we could have no confidence in creation. What man 
would build a ship to carry his goods to the ends of the world 
across the desert sea, if that sea were accidentally sometimes liquid 
and sometimes solid? What man could have any confidence 
in the safety of his house, or in the security of his person, if the 
fire sometimes burned and sometimes did not, or sometimes spread 
its flames a hundred feet, and sometimes only a few inches ? The 
very fixity of the laws of nature is evidence not of God's retreat 
from his world, but of the immutability of the God that made 



164 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

them, and one of the grounds of my confidence in Ins govern- 
ment, and of my firm conviction that the heavens do rule — pre- 
cious in this world, and infinitely comforting in the prospect of 
that which is to come. 

God reigns; and the evidence of it is this, that he is showing 
year after year and age after age, that all the wiles of Satan, and 
all the power of men, cannot permanently build up a falsehood, 
and that all the combinations of them both together cannot uproot 
the truth that he has given to us. Is there no evidence of the 
present action and government of God in this fact, that every 
false religion is proved by history to be a blunder, and that every 
atom of divine truth is proved by experience to be immortal and 
permanent. Is it not evidence that the heavens do rule, when we 
see all men, of all pursuits, in all acts, and under all circum- 
stances, consciously or unconsciously, designedly or undesignedly, 
contributing to the spread and adding to the splendour of the 
claims and glory of the Christian faith ? Is it no evidence that 
the heavens do rule, when we see proofs of the truth of the Bible 
dug from the lava of Herculaneum and Pompeii, excavated from 
the grave of Nineveh by Layard, brought forth by Young and 
Champollion from the mummies hidden thousands of years in the 
pyramids ? Is there not evidence that there is a God watching 
over that blessed book called the Bible, and guarding that divine 
treasure called the gospel, in the fact that he is bringing forth 
elucidations of its truth and proofs of its authority, from the 
grave of Nineveh — the pyramids of the Pharaohs — the crash of 
cities — the wreck of nations — till at last the most skeptic minds 
are constrained to own that the religion of the despised Nazarene 
is the religion of the great God, and to predict that it will last, 
and flourish, and reign for ever and ever ? Is it do evidence 
that God reigns, or that the heavens do rule, when we see all 
things working together for good to the people of God ; and their 
light affliction, which is but for a moment, issuing in their eternal 
glory ) and all the facts of history, and all the phenomena of 
science, and all the phases of national experience, helping, and in 
no respect retarding or obstructing the cause of Christ ? Is it not 
an evidence that God reigns, when we see the church and the 
university flourish together — religion and science, like sisters, 



THE SCEPTRE OF GOD. 165 

walk arm-in-arm, the one casting its glory upon the other, and 
both arrayed in priestly robes, witnessing to Him who gave them 
their commission, and ministering to the wants and necessities of 
mankind ? And is not all this tending to accelerate the advent 
of that blessed day when science shall come forth from her cells, 
and students from their colleges, and philosophers from their stu- 
dies, and historians from their labours, and all men from all places 
in the world, and all things in their maturity and ripeness, to 
combine with one heart, and with one mind, and with one mouth, 
in saying, " The heavens do rule," and " Jesus is the Lamb of 
Grod that taketh away the sins of the world V 



166 



LECTURE XII. 

belshazzab/s feast. 

Daniel v. 

Being unable to select a verse on which to construct an epi- 
tome of this sublime and interesting chapter, I have taken as the 
subject of comment the whole chapter. The main facts in it, as 
far as these relate to Nebuchadnezzar the grandfather, and Bel- 
shazzar the king his grandson, we have considered in the succes- 
sive expositions of various passages in the preceeding chapters : 
we have now the account of Belshazzar's reign, his sensual life, 
the departure of his kingdom, his own slaughter in the midst of 
his revels, the victorious army of the Medes in the midst of Ba- 
bylon, and the first or the golden empire passed over to the second 
or the silver one. 

There was no sin in the feast over which Belshazzar presided. 
I mean, it was not necessarily sinful. It was an annual festival, 
commemorative of a great event. The sin was not in the eating, 
or in the drinking, if both were in moderation, but in the spirit 
which actuated the eaters and the drinkers, and the excess to 
which they went in both, and the defiance they showed toward 
God. 

It was during this festival that Babylon was taken. The Mede 
knew beforehand its date, its nature, and its accomplishments, 
marched his troops into the midst of Babylon, took possession of 
its palaces, its halls, and all its glory, and instituted that second 
empire, the history of which we have briefly sketched in a pre- 
vious discourse. It is well known that the siege of Babylon had 
already lasted two years and a half; all the besieger's stratagems 
had failed, and he was on the point of retiring from Babylon as 
a city impregnable, and fitted by its great strength to defy all 
human aggressive power ; but on this night, one day's bacchana- 



BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST. 167 

lian excess did for Babylon what all the siege and stratagems of 
two years under the Mecle had been utterly unable to accomplish. 
And it seems from this, as from kindred instances in the history 
of nations, that when God has pronounced the hour of a nation's 
doom, the inhabitants of that nation seem to lose the caution, the 
skill, the energy they had exhibited before, and precipitate the 
very result they themselves are anxious to avert. Nations rarely 
fall before a foreign aggressor ; their ruin or their glory is, under 
God, within themselves. Nations die suicides ; they are seldom 
or never destroyed by any force from without. Let a nation be 
true to God, loyal to its laws — let purity and piety and true reli- 
gion irradiate its palaces, and cast their softening influence over 
all its lanes, its alleys, and its hovels, and that nation has within 
it the grounds, as it has over it the promises, of immortality. 
But let a nation be corrupt in its lower classes, profligate and sen- 
sual in its higher classes — let there be education without religion 
— let there be profession without principle — let there be a name 
and a form without the substance, and it needs no prophet to 
predict that nation's doom, and no long or deep calculation to 
count the years that are sure to precede it. 

The great sin which seemed to characterize the feast celebrated 
on this occasion was, Belshazzar's impious mockery in taking the 
sacred vessels which his father, as he is here called, or, strictly, 
and as it might be rendered, his grandfather, had carried from 
Jerusalem and brought into the midst of Babylon, and in making 
use of those vessels for the loose and licentious purposes of an 
impious festival, as if he could hurl defiance at the God of Abra- 
ham, and despise and defy the power of him by whom kings reign 
and princes decree justice. There was in this act needless insult 
to the captive Jews, and impious blasphemy against the God 
whom they worshipped. If the vessels were taken by superior 
power, and in just judgment for the sins of the people, it became 
him in the presence of that people to lay them aside and shut 
them up from their reach, but not to insult them by profaning 
them. We have no warrant to insult the humblest rite of an- 
other's faith. Let it be Hindooism, let it be Mahommedanism, 
which we come into contact with ; convince, convert, enlighten, 
explain, but never think that you can put down a sentiment that 



168 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

is sacred, by mere ridicule ; or that you can exalt a dogma that is 
divine, by a needless reproaching of the creed and rites of the 
victims of a superstitious faith. No misfortune is so great as to 
have become the worshipper of a false god ; no man is so deeply 
to be pitied as he that has lost his way to heaven : to insult him 
is inhuman ; to turn his rites into ridicule is unchristian • to try 
to enlighten, convince, and bring him into the more excellent way, 
is at once worthy of our highest efforts and our greatest sacrifices, 
most likely to succeed because owned, and blessed, and recognised 
by Him without whose blessing nothing can prosper, nothing is wise, 
nothing is holy, and whose blessing nothing sinful ever inherits. 

The sin then, I have shown, was the desecration of that which 
was holy, or the application to profane and licentious purposes 
of the vessels that were outwardly dedicated to the God of Israel. 
Is it possible that we, " on whom the ends of the world are 
come," can in any respect be guilty of a similar offence ? It is 
possible, and in many ways. Where religion is dragged from its 
lofty and controlling sphere, and made to gild the claims of a 
party or to enforce the peculiar principles and power of a sect, it 
is a holy thing desecrated to an unholy purpose. When the sacra- 
ment is taken, not to commemorate the death of Christ, but to 
obtain a passport to an office and a qualification for a political or 
civil sphere, we see a sacred vessel desecrated to an unholy end. 
When the facts and the expressions of the Bible, its sublime, its 
pure, and its holy truths, are used, as they not ^infrequently are, 
to point a pun, add edge to a jest, or keenness to a sarcasm, to 
excite a laugh or to provoke a sneer, you have Grod's vessels de- 
secrated to unhallowed and profane ends. Never try to construct 
jests from the Bible. The jest that is based upon a text of 
Scripture will come across you like a dark horrid spectre when the 
most solemn appeals are made from the pulpit and the most holy 
lessons are being read from the Bible. I know not a more reck- 
less act, or a more offensive sin, than that of taking divine truths 
and making puns on them, or using them as double-entendres, or 
for other purposes of a like nature. Such deeds reflect little 
credit on the piety, and still less, let me add, on the good taste 
of those that so use them. 

I think we desecrate holy things when the sublime descriptions 



BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST. 169 

of the judgment to come are turned into a mere musical festival. 
No one more admires sacred music than I do. No one is more 
deeply impressed and thrilled by its magnificent and glorious con- 
ceptions. But, when the awful agonies of Calvary, the deep and 
sorrowful experience of the suffering Son of Man, are used merely 
to create the most delightful emotions, or the semi-sensuous, semi- 
spiritual feelings of the crowd that listen, I do think it is the 
nearest approach to Belshazzar's feast, when the sacred things of 
God are made to subserve to the sensuous tastes of man. I do 
not mean that there is to be no patronage of good music. I do 
not say that an oratorio is in itself inherently and inseparably 
sinful ; but I do say the music should be used to impress the sen- 
timent, not the sentiment to make the music only the more grate- 
ful. We are not to use God's truth to improve our music, but 
we are to use our noblest music to unfold the attributes and make 
more vivid and glorious the grandeur and the excellency of God's 
truth. And when the opposite course is adopted, and man takes 
holy and thrilling truths, the agonies of the cross, the triumphs 
of Tabor, the prospects of glory, the apocalyptic visions, and 
uses them for an unthinking crowd to shout Encore ! and de- 
mand a repetition, and to applaud as a splendid exhibition or a 
glorious treat that they have listened to ; then I think it is all 
but a repetition of Belshazzar's festival. I should like to hear 
those noble productions of Handel as acts of solemn worship. 
And when I do hear them I feel for myself that it is the unfold- 
ing and developing of the deepest and holiest emotions of my 
heart. But when men who have no sympathy with God or with 
religion — no love to the Saviour or to his word, but merely a 
strong and enthusiastic sympathy with the grand and touching in 
musical creations, go to such festivals and use sacred words mere- 
ly to help them to feel sublime emotions and praise the musician 
while pleased themselves, I do think that there is in such circum- 
stances a profanation of that which is holy, and a desecration of 
that which is consecrated to God. 

There seems to me to be a desecration of the holy vessels when 
the Sabbath is used for purposes of trade — when transactions of a 
political nature are carried on upon it — when the assembly, or 
the cabinet, or the congress, or the parliament, or chambers, oi- 
ls 



170 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

whatever these legislative bodies may be called, venture to meet 
on it. The Sabbath is the most sacred thing, next to the Bible, 
if not equal to the Bible, that God has given us. The desecra- 
tion of a holy thing to a profane and an unholy purpose occurs 
when the place appointed for the worship of God — for whether it 
be church or chapel, whether consecrated by a form or opened by 
a prayer, is to my mind of no great moment, for it is, in the one 
case or in the other, a place in which holy hearts are to beat, 
humble spirits are to bow, reverential prayer and praise are to be 
uttered — is employed for vestry meetings, for political disputes, 
for noisy and tumultuous assemblages, for shouting applause with 
the tongue, and beating applause with the feet. In this there 
seems to me to be an approximation to the profanation exempli- 
fied at the feast of Belshazzar, where sacred things were dese- 
crated to unholy purposes. Let us then recollect, that it is pos- 
sible to be guilty of Belshazzar's sin in other than in Belshazzar's 
circumstances. Still more are we guilty of desecration when the 
heart that was made for God is made the throne of Mammon — 
when the affections that were destined to cluster around him are 
made to cling to that which is earthly — when God is superseded 
by the world, and things divine by things that are human ; then 
that which was once the image of God, and is meant to be re- 
stored and be so again, is desecrated to unhallowed purposes, God 
is dishonoured, and we are thereby ruined. 

But I pass from the feast itself to notice the circumstances by 
which it was specially accompanied. It was a feast plainly of no 
ordinary splendour. All the lustre that rank and beauty and 
renown could shed upon it was there. There were toasts, I doubt 
not, of . enthusiastic patriotism — there were songs of boundless 
loyalty — there was the loud defiance of every foe without, and 
there was the expressed and reiterated security against all dis- 
loyalty or treachery from within. But it was just when the feast 
had reached its highest splendour, and when all hearts were 
bounding, and all spirits were joyous, that a thrill of terror rush- 
ed through every soul — that the cup fell from the king's hand — 
and, in the language of the Spirit. of God, "his countenance was 
changed, and his thoughts troubled him; the joints of his loins 
were loosed, and his knees smote the one against the other." A 



BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST. 171 

mysterious writing appeared upon the plaster : no eye seemed to 
guide it, no visible hand seemed to inscribe it, and mysterious 
fingers, belonging none knew to whom, recorded with the speed 
and with the vivid impression of the lightning, the unintelligible, 
but to this ungodly prince, because unintelligible, the awful in- 
scription, "Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin." One may ask, as the 
king and his lords did not understand it, why they were thus 
afraid ? To a man who lives in sin, the unknown is always the 
terrible. Why? Because we always interpret the events that 
we cannot understand in the light of our own consciences, which 
we cannot but feel. The man that is at peace with God sees all 
events approaching him as a joyous procession of friends and 
benefactors, and helpers to immortality. The man who is not at 
peace with God, but who lives in sin, reads all events in the light 
of his conscience, and amid the fore-thrown terrors of a judgment 
day to which that conscience points. Suspicion, fear, alarm, are 
in such circumstances always the first feelings of the guilty. It 
is when unknown, mysterious, and supernatural things occur, that 
the conscience recollects a thousand crimes, accuses of many 
wrongs, and reasons of righteousness, temperance, and judgment 
to come. What an instance have we of this in the case of Adam 
and Eve ! Before they sinned they loved to hear the footsteps 
of their approaching Father, as sounds that were far more mu- 
sical to their ears than songs in the groves of Paradise. But the 
instant that they sinned, all was changed ! they ran from God. 
Why ? God merely said, " Adam, where art thou V — the words 
that he had uttered often before : but on this occasion, the instant 
they heard them, Adam and Eve ran and hid themselves. Why 
this change ? Because before the fall their innocent hearts had 
construed the footsteps of God as footsteps significant of nearing 
beneficence and love; but after they had sinned, their unholy 
hearts construed God's footsteps in the light of their sins, and 
they felt or feared, because they were guilty, that it was an aven- 
ger coming to destroy them. In the case of Felix, we are told 
that when Paul reasoned before him he trembled. Take the case 
of Herod: when he heard of the progress of Jesus he was alarmed. 
What had Herod done ? He had beheaded John the Baptist, a 
preacher whom Herod for a time " heard gladly;" who was to 



172 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

Herod and to Herod's court the most popular preacher that ever 
ascended a pulpit, until he touched on a sin that Herod loved, and 
pointed out the offence that necessitated either Herod's reforma- 
tion or his fall. He took the alternative suggested to him by the 
infamous courtiers that were about him, and murdered the preacher 
in order that he might silence the preacher's testimony. Hence, 
when news were brought to Herod that Jesus was come, and that 
great miracles were wrought by him, Herod said, " This is John 
the Baptist, that is risen from the dead." See here the force of 
Herod's conscience : he was a Sadducee, who did not believe in 
the doctrine of the resurrection ) yet so strong was his conscience, 
that it overpowered his convictions, and suggested to him that 
John was indeed risen from the dead, from which he once thought 
that no one could arise, and had come to punish him for the crimes of 
which he had been guilty. Take the case of any of those men- 
tioned in the word of Grod in similar circumstances, and you will 
call to mind what the poet has expressed in different words : — 

" Thus conscience does make cowards of us all." 

But Belshazzar, who was so awed by this vision, was one who 
had had great opportunities of knowing and of doing the will of 
Glod. He had seen his grandfather banished from the society of 
men, and made the companion of the herds of the field ; and the 
fact which ought to have been a lesson to him, he disregarded as 
if it had never occurred, and indulged in the sins and committed 
the crimes which had brought down such signal judgments upon 
Nebuchadnezzar. What he was condemned for by Daniel was 
not that he himself was wrong, but that he had not availed him- 
self of the opportunities he had of being right. Our condemna- 
tion at the judgment-day will not be that conscientiously we have 
believed a lie ; but it will be, that we neglected the opportunities 
of acquiring and making ourselves acquainted with the truth. I 
do not believe that the deist will be condemned for his cleism, 
but for his neglect of the means of making himself a Christian. 
I do not believe that the creed we have come to most conscien- 
tiously, as many a skeptic does, will be the great damning fact at 
the judgment-day, but that we devoted more time to the exami- 
nation of a pebble, more attention to the study of a butterfly, 



BELHAZZAR'S FEAST. 173 

more of genius to the enriching of ourselves and the filling of our 
coffers, than we ever spared for the solution of this great question, 
What must I do to he saved ? or for solemn preparation for death 
and judgment and eternity, which the Bible suggests and implies 
in every page. It may be that the very Sabbath which you re- 
solved to spend in dissipation at home, might have been that on 
which you would have heard the truth which would have turned 
you from darkness unto light, and from the power of Satan unto 
God. It may be that the very sermon which you neglected or 
excused yourself for neglecting by a headache which would never 
have kept you from the Exchange, or from the appointed hour 
and place of business, might have been the very sermon which, 
under the blessing of the Spirit of God, would have proved to 
you a savour of life unto life. Never lose an opportunity of hear- 
ing the truth if you can possibly avoid it. There are proper ex- 
cuses, beyond all dispute, but they ought to be grave, weighty, 
and worthy of the subject, to justify you in once omitting to lis- 
ten to that glorious gospel, in the preaching of which some single 
word dropped in season may be to you the turning point of your 
everlasting acceptance before God. 

When the king saw this mysterious hand-writing, he sent for the 
astrologers, and asked them to explain the meaning of the inscrip- 
tion on the wall. It has been a puzzling question to commenta- 
tors why the wise men were unable to translate it. The words are 
plain, translatable Chaldee; and a Chaldean scholar of the present 
day, if called upon to read them when inscribed upon any thing, 
would be able instantly to do so. There have been two or three 
reasons assigned for this inability on the part of the wise men. 
One is, that they were written in the ancient Hebrew characters, 
the knowledge of which they had lost, and not in the modern 
Hebrew character, which differs little or nothing from the Chal- 
dean. The character in which the Old Testament is commonly 
written is not the ancient Hebrew character, and the square 
form of the letters now used is not the primitive form. It has 
therefore been supposed that the inscription was in their ancient 
characters, and that therefore the Chaldeans were unable to read 
it. The difference between the two forms may be as great as 
between our English letters and the German, or perhaps between 

15* 



174 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

the modern English letters and the ancient Saxon or old English 
character. Others think that the words were inscribed in some 
dark, mysterious hieroglyphic, to the signification of which there 
was no key in the possession of the astrologers. Others, that it 
was the divine truth written by a divine hand, and that, like 
the Bible itself, it was intelligible only in the light in which it 
was written — that it was unmeaning and unintelligible to the 
astrologers, and luminous only to him whom the Spirit of God 
had taught. These are the reasons which have been assigned, 
and any and all of them are sufficient to explain why the Chal- 
dean astrologers were unable to interpret the writing. When 
they failed to do so, all was blank terror and alarm in the minds 
of the king and his courtiers; but in the crisis, when all seemed 
to be agitated and to have lost their self-possession, one woman 
appeared nobler than them all, and spoke with a calmness, a 
self-possession, and a dignity which kindled hope where ail 
before was utter despair. This woman — here called the queen 
— was not the wife of Belshazzar, but the wife of his grand- 
father, Nebuchadnezzar; and therefore I venture to call her the 
queen-dowager. She instantly stepped in, and suggested the 
person who could solve the difficulty; and, in so doing, she pre- 
sented a striking contrast to the conduct, feelings, and condition 
of those that were around her. It is almost invariably the fact, 
that woman, who is easily agitated by trifles, when some great 
crisis overtakes her which calls forth all the latent energies of 
her soul, is found to display a calmness, a magnanimity, a self- 
possession that makes the magnanimity of the other sex sink 
into insignificance beside it! A woman is made for a great 
crisis; and it is in such that she shines like an angel, and in- 
dicates power which man does not give her credit for; and in 
this case, where those powers were illuminated, inspired, and 
sanctified by piety, she presented a contrast the most complete to 
all who were present at that dissipated festival, smitten as they 
were with fear, shuddering with alarm, and looking for the hea- 
vens to rend, and the thunderbolts of Grod to overwhelm them. 
And is not the whole history of Christianity a comment on what 
I have said? Who was last at the cross? Woman. Who was 
first at the tomb on the resurrection morn? Woman. Amid 



BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST. 175 

all the voices of scorn, insult, and reproach that were lifted up 
against the blessed Jesus on the streets of Jerusalem, there is 
not one record of the voice of a woman being heard offering 
insult or using the language of scorn or reproach. If she was 
first in the transgression, she was first in the scenes of the re- 
covery and the resurrection also. It is time that man should 
not mention the first, but rejoice in her altered aspect and bear- 
ing in the last. And who does not know that the vigils of the 
dead, the beds of the sick, and the chambers of the dying, have 
never been without her presence? And who does not know that 
just where woman is placed in her proper position, there society 
culminates in its loftiest grandeur? teaching us that the ordi- 
nance of God is not that woman should be, as she is made in 
some countries, the slave and the serf of man, but the orna- 
ment, the companion, the friend, and in some respects the in- 
structor of man. 

The queen, thus exhibiting such magnanimity, appeared in 
the midst of the scene, and suggested Daniel as the solver of 
doubts, the explainer of perplexities, gifted by Grod with miracu- 
lous and inspired understanding. There is just one fact which 
I will now dwell upon, reserving for another lecture the inscrip- 
tion on the wall, and that is, that it is stated by the queen that 
Daniel was the head of the astrologers and the wise men and the 
magicians of the kingdom, "whom thy father made master of 
the astrologers, the wise men, the magicians, and the soothsay- 
ers." This has been objected to, because it is expressly stated 
in Deuteronomy that the children of Israel were to have no sym- 
pathy or communion with diviners and soothsayers; for instance, 
"There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his 
son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divina- 
tion, or an observer of the times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or 
a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a 
necromancer." (Dent, xviii. 10.) 

It has been asked, why did Daniel consent, according to the 
statement of the queen, to be the chief or the head of the as- 
trologers, soothsayers, and magicians of the king of Babylon? 
The answer is, that our apprehension, i. e. t\\e popular apprehen- 
sion of the character of these astrologers is a very erroneous one. 



176 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

They were not enchanters who held communion with evil spi- 
rits; they were not diviners. They were men who studied the 
signs and phenomena of astronomy, and, having no written reve- 
lations, they believed that God had written the present, the past, 
and also some presentiments of the future, in the sky; that the 
stars were the letters of that revelation; and that by studying 
them they might interpret events — present, past, and to come. 
If they had been soothsayers or diviners in the same sense as 
those to whom Moses alludes, for Daniel to have allowed himself 
to be placed at the head of them would have been the sacrifice 
of his principles and the surrender of his faith. This he did 
not, and would not do. They were magi, not magicians. They 
were philosophers, not sorcerers. They held communion with 
God's outward world, not with evil spirits, as the sorcerers and 
diviners of old. When Daniel, therefore, consented to become 
their head, he became the patron of science, the principal of a 
university, the president of a royal society, and in no respect did 
he sympathize, by thus consenting, with sorcerers, magicians, or 
men that held communion with evil spirits. And no doubt 
more science than we generally give them credit for was known 
to these men. I doubt not that a perfect acquaintance with the 
stars of the sky, the flowers of the earth, all bright things above, 
and all beautiful things below, was more frequently the posses- 
sion of these ancient philosophers, than modern ones, with their 
loftier discernment, are disposed generally to admit. Thus we 
may see that if we had no written book reflecting God's mind, 
the next book, though far inferior to it, is God's book of Na- 
ture : we can see his smiles in the sunbeams, his mercy in Provi- 
dence, his glory in the expanse that it above us — his foot- 
print in the depths that are beneath us; and blind, blind indeed 
must that man be, who does not see that God is in the height, 
and in the depth, having a centre that is everywhere, and a cir- 
cumference that is nowhere. These astrologers were not to be 
blamed if, without a Bible such as we have, they took the next 
Bible, the book of the outer world, and there sought to under- 
stand the mind, the purposes, and the will of God. 

Daniel then, as the president of this royal society — a student 
of science — the principal of this learned university — is introduced 



BELSIIAZZAR'S FEAST. 177 

into tlie feast amid its fading splendour, its departing joys, its 
miserable, degraded and degrading remains ; and the king speaks 
to him as recognising him only by name, but not knowing him in 
person. Daniel was banished from that court : he was too honest 
spoken a prophet to be very popular there. The king therefore 
tells him, "I have heard that thou canst make interpretation, and 
dissolve doubts — that the spirit of the gods is in thee, and that 
light and understanding and excellent wisdom is found in thee/' 
Daniel, without being discomposed by the cold reception of the 
monarch, and without being the least awed by the dangers he 
would have incurred through faithlessness, or in the least seduced 
by the honours and emoluments which would have fallen to his 
lot had he prophesied smooth things, addresses the monarch, see- 
ing him disrobed of all the pomp and splendour of a throne, and 
only trembling like a guilty criminal in the presence of a holy 
and a heart-searching G-od. Daniel reminds him of his sins — 
tells him of his crimes — shows him how lessons he might have 
learned he had lost — how events that were significant he had neg- 
lected — how the history of his grandfather he had read back- 
ward — how he had incurred all the responsibilities of knowing 
the truth, and lost the benefit of all its precious and practical 
lessons ; and then informs him that, because of these things, 
the kingdom had passed from him, and, in the high purposes of 
him who setteth up one and pulleth down others, had been given 
to another. 

Lessons that are neglected become awful judgments. The ser- 
mons which you hear, which are fitted to instruct, but from which 
you draw no practical instruction whatever, shall reverberate in 
crashes of thunder at the judgment-day; and you will learn,, 
when it is too late, that it would have been more tolerable if you 
had never appeared within the walls of the sanctuary, or read the 
sacred page, or listened to a preached gospel, than to have done 
all and despised all, and perished amid the offers of love, the 
sounds of reconciliation, and the hopes of glory. 

Turn to practical account every lesson that you hear : when the 
preacher has done, your duties only commence. What I speak is 
to instruct you, and that instruction is meant to save you. Go 
forth, and show on the Royal Exchange — in the cabinet, in the 



178 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

congress, in the parliament — show in all places that are high aud 
in all that are lowly — in the high-roads of public life, and in the 
by-paths and isolated lanes of private life — show in every rela- 
tionship and position in society, that Christianity has made you 
holier, happier, nobler than the rest of mankind, and that it is 
not in vain that you have heard that a God has suffered that 
mankind might be redeemed. 



179 



LECTURE XIII. 



WEIGHED AND FOUND WANTING. 

" Then was the part of the hand sent from him ; and this writing was writ- 
ten. And this is the writing that was written, Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin." — 
Daniel v. 24, 25. 

I noticed, in my previous addresses, the circumstances that 
preceded the interpretation of this mysterious inscription on the 
plaster of the royal palace : I now beg your attention to the sig- 
nificance of each word of that inscription, but especially to 
one which seems most capable of affording improvement to us, 
namely, " tekel." The word " mene" is twice repeated, simply 
to give emphasis to the word: "mene, mene;" literally, "there 
is number," "thy kingdom is numbered," or, "Grod hath num- 
bered thy kingdom and finished it." It is repeated merely to 
give emphasis, just as the words are repeated, " thou shalt surely 
die;" literally, "dying, thou shalt die." " Tekel," again, means 
simply, "he hath weighed;" it is applied to the act of a gold- 
smith, who weighs the gold, and ascertains the amount of alloy, 
that he may separate it from the pure metal. The word "uphar- 
sin" is the plural number of the same word which is repeated 
in the 28th verse, "peres;" and, though it reads so differently 
to us, it is really one word, differing only in number, and the 
meaning of it is, simply and literally, "is divided;" and Daniel 
the prophet adds, in the prophetic spirit, the words or the com- 
mentary, " and is given to the Medes and Persians." The word 
"upharsin," or "peres," has nothing to do with the word "Per- 
sians," or the word "Mede;" this last is the explanation given 
by the prophet; and the inscription, literally translated, would 
be "numbered, weighed, (and, probably, found wanting,) and 



180 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

divided;" and Daniel thus explains the mysterious enigma, by 
saying, " thy kingdom is numbered," or the years of its exist- 
ence are now completed; "thyself art weighed in the scales of 
the sanctuary, and found wanting; and your kingdom now is 
about to be divided among the Medes and Persians, your bit- 
terest enemies." Such is the meaning of the words. 

God is represented as weighing all men; all their motives, 
their ends, their characters. It is a common scriptural expres- 
sion, which indicates that it is meant by God that we should feel 
and realize this fact. For instance, Hannah said, "The Lord is 
a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed." Da- 
vid says, "Men of low degree are vanity, and men of high 
degree are a lie; to be laid in the balance they are altogether 
wanting." Again, Isaiah says, "Thou most upright dost weigh 
the path of the just;" and Solomon writes, "All the ways of a 
man are clean in his own eyes; but the Lord weiglieth the spi- 
rit." From these passages we learn that the idea contained in 
this inscription is one frequently found in Scripture, as appli- 
cable to all. It suggests to us many precious and important 
lessons. 

Let us realize this one fact, that there is not a motive in one 
single heart in this assembly that the eye of God does not now 
see as clearly as if that motive were the only thing in the whole 
universe, and that God does not weigh with an exactness as 
complete as if the destinies of the universe depended upon this 
one result. Let every man in this assembly only realize this. 
It is important that I should ask you to do so : for I believe it is 
not increase of light that you need from the pulpit, so much as 
increase of power in the pew, that will make the light which you 
feel to become life, and the lessons that you know to be im- 
pressed with effect. Let us then try to realize this solemn 
truth; and if there be a God in heaven it is true, that there is 
not a motive in the depths of our hearts, there is not a design 
the most intricate, the most secret within us, there is not a 
crooked path you intend to pursue to-morrow, nor a crooked 
practice in which you intend to indulge next week, that God 
does not now completely comprehend and unravel, the estimate 
of which God does not now form, and the doom of which is not 



WEIGHED AND FOUND WANTING. 181 

denounced at a tribunal from which there can be no appeal. 
Psalrn cxxxix. ought to be the expression of our feelings now : 
"Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me; thou art ac- 
quainted with all my ways : thou knowest my thoughts afar off." 
I have often been struck with that single clause in Psalm 
cxxxix., God "knows our thought afar off." While the thought 
looms in the distant horizon, before we have clearly conceived it 
ourselves in all the length and breadth of its dimensions, God 
sees it, knows it, and thoroughly appreciates it. By him all 
thoughts are estimated, all actions are weighed, and all desires 
are known. This is not the case with one individual more than 
another, or one degree or rank more than another. The Psalm- 
ist, in the passage I have already quoted, says, " Men of low 
degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie; to be laid 
in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity." Let the 
thought be in the heart of a monarch or a beggar, let it be the ap- 
propriated dishonesty of a penny, or the seizing violently of a 
kingdom — God sees it and notes it : and every deed that is done 
upon the earth, unrepented of and unforgiven, shall be heard in 
reverberating crashes throughout eternity; the crime containing 
in its bosom its punishments, and all eternity attesting that it 
is so. 

But let me look at the words I have selected, and especially at 
the word " tekel," " weighed in the balance and found wanting," 
because it is to each individually and personally instructive. God 
weighs every man, .we are told, in the scales of the sanctuary. 
He weighs them at the judgment-seat, and in reference to their 
everlasting state of happiness or of sorrow. There is placed, if 
you will allow me to prosecute the figure without exhausting it, 
or extracting more from it than it is meant to convey, in one 
scale, God's holy, everlasting, immutable law — that law which is, 
" thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with 
all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength, 
and thy neighbour as thyself." He will not subtract one atom : it 
is not " thou shalt love with much of thine heart ;" but, " thou 
shalt love with all thine heart." It is not, "thou shalt love with 
a large share of thy mind," but " with all thy mind, and thy 
neighbour as thyself." This is placed in one scale : every man's 



182 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

character is placed in the opposite scale, and by its preponderance 
or its lightness every man's doom is fixed and decided accordingly. 
What have we to place against it ? Years without thought, and 
days and nights without a sense of responsibility to God. Years 
of selfishness, and sin, and rebellion, and suspicion, and hatred, 
is all that man, the best among us, can place in the scale that 
is weighed against this. And needs it any logic of mine to de- 
monstrate that when in the one scale there is a perfect unchang- 
ing law, demanding perfect, continuous, unswerving obedience, 
and in the other are sin and folly and shame, the inscription must 
appear upon the very scales that belong to the balance, "By deeds 
of law no man living can be justified?" "Tekel, thou art weighed 
in the balance, and art found wanting." 

But suppose, in the next place, I keep still in the one scale, 
this holy, perfect law, demanding perfect love for God, and per- 
fect love for your neighbour ; and suppose I select the most ac- 
complished, the most honourable, the most just, the most generous 
of mankind, (and all these traits are beautiful, because originally 
divine,) and suppose I place this man, who has paid every debt, 
who owes no man any thing, who is characterized by every social, 
national, personal, and domestic excellence — and all these things 
are most precious and most excellent; and I only wish that 
Christians were more and more adorned with them than they 
are — suppose T put such an one in the scale opposite to that 
which contains the holy and the unchanging law of God. What 
would be the result ? That this scale must inevitably kick the 
beam. For, when the experiment is made, we must say to him, 
"Most justly have you done to man, but how stand you with 
reference to God ? most generously have you acted in society, but 
how have you acted toward God ? you have kept the last six 
commandments of the law, I will assume, perfectly; but what 
have you done with the four first ? you have loved your neigh- 
bour, I will admit, with all your heart ; but have you loved God 
with all your heart, and mind, and strength ? It is utterly im- 
possible that a half-obedience can meet the requirements of a law 
which demands whole obedience to every commandment and every 
section of it. You are not wanting if you are weighed against 
the last six commandments of the law; but you are "tekel," alto- 



WEIGHED AND FOUND WANTING. 183 

getlier wanting, if weighed against the whole ten commandments 
of the law. It will be no justification in the sight of God that 
you have been blameless toward man, if you have not been what 
God requires you to be toward him that made you, and gave his 
Son to redeem you. 

But I will adduce another character, and weigh him. I will 
take the man who is not only just, and generous, and good in all 
the relationships of social life — and such men there are, bearing 
mark of man's original beauty and perfection which sin and Satan 
have not altogether effaced — but who, in addition, is most strict 
in his attention to what are popularly called " all his religious 
duties ;" who is never absent from the church ; who belongs to 
the strictest and most rigid sect in that church j who is a 
punctilious observer of every ceremony ; who never made a genu- 
flexion too few or too many \ who never was absent from matins 
in the morning or from vespers at night ; never failed to bow at 
the name of Jesus ; wore black on Good Friday, and dressed in 
white upon Easter Sunday; one who fasted while others feasted — 
is such a one, who has been thus exact, thus punctilious, thus 
obedient to every ecclesiastical requirement, who has been thus 
baptized, thus confirmed, thus consecrated, thus dedicated, thus 
absolved — is he to be classed with the multitude of mankind ? — 
is he, when weighed in the scales, to be pronounced u altogether 
wanting ?" The answer is, God's law is not satisfied with cere- 
monies. You cannot pay your debts to God in rubrics. The 
sound will still thunder in your ears, Who has required this at 
your hands? God's law is, "Thou shalt love;" your response 
has been, "I have performed." The decision must be, that with 
all your ecclesiastical ceremonies, and with all your social excel- 
lences, the first ecclesiastically perfect, the last morally exact, 
when weighed against the holy, unchangeable, unswerving law 
of God, you are " altogether wanting." 

But I will add one feature more, and will assume this charac- 
ter to be perfected by another ; that he is in all not only perfectly 
sincere, but an earnest inquirer after truth, anxious in all respects 
to know and do his duty. Surely such a one, when weighed in 
the balance, though he has erred and come short in some things, 
will be forgiven, in that he was sincere in the pursuit of all 



184. PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

things. I answer, sincerity added to a sin does not make it 
virtue ; sincerity added to a heresy does not make it orthodoxy. 
When one is sincere, we respect the man because he is so ) but 
if he is in error, we do not the less condemn the error, because 
he is sincere that holds it. The sincerity with which he holds it 
makes us no less heartily denounce the error that ruins his soul. 
I have not a doubt that there are sincere Jews, sincere and en- 
thusiastic Romanists, sincere Socinians and skeptics — I have no 
doubt of it. Their sincerity must make me treat them with 
respect, their error remains to be judged by him in whose word 
it is clearly and unequivocally denounced. Saul of Tarsus said, 
" I verily thought that I ought to do many things contrary to the 
name of Jesus." He was perfectly sincere ; but he adds, in the 
retrospect of his sincerity, " Those things which were gain to me, 
those I counted loss for Christ ; and I count all things but loss 
for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ." The sin- 
cerest ecclesiastic, and the sincerest moralist, if unjustified by a 
righteousness without them, and unwashed in the Redeemer's 
blood, when weighed in the scales of the sanctuary, must be 
found " altogether wanting." There is not, in one word, a saint 
upon earth, the most excellent that ever breathed, who is not 
compelled at every moment to say, " If we say that we have no 
sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us '/' and there 
is not an enlightened and a Christian heart that does not breathe, 
in the prospect of a judgment-seat, " Enter not into judgment 
with thy servant, Lord, for in thy sight can no man living be 
justified." There is not a Christian in this assembly who knows 
what sin is, and what his own heart is, and how pure, how per- 
fect, how infinite in its exactions is the holy law of Grod, who 
does not feel, " If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquity, Lord, 
who could stand ?" Therefore there is not a Christian who, as 
he thinks of this dread balance, and of that most perfect law, and 
of his own deep and conscious defects, does not cry, and cry with 
unfeigned lips, " God be merciful to me a sinner." 

How then can we meet this law? -how can we escape the 
inscription " tekel," weighed and found wanting? Against the 
law is weighed for us the magnifier of that law. Against the law 
with its infinite demands, is weighed the infinite righteousness 



WEIGHED AND FOUND WANTING. 185 

of him that made it honourable. Against the breach of that 
law is placed that precious blood which cleanseth from all sin. 
When we look at that law, the inscription impressed upon every 
soul is, " weighed and found wanting." But when we look at 
Christ, who is our representative in the prospect of the decisions 
of that law, then the inscription "tekel," weighed and found 
wanting, is washed away in his precious blood, and the glorious 
and illuminated characters are inscribed in their stead, " com- 
plete in Christ, without spot or blemish, or any such thing." 

I have looked then at man as weighed against God's holy 
law; and we have seen that by deeds of law no flesh can be jus- 
tified" — that "weighed and found wanting" is our inscription by 
nature; and that justified, and complete, and accepted is only 
our inheritance by grace. I now take the expression "weighed 
and found wanting" in reference to Christian character. I put 
in the one scale not God's holy law, but I put in it true, though 
it may not be perfect, Christian character; and I wish you to 
look at various characters, as weighed against it, and see if we 
are among those who, thus weighed, are " found wanting." 

In the first place, they are weighed and found wanting who 
are not converted, or born again, or changed in heart and spirit. 
We are told in Scripture that the carnal mind is "enmity 
against God," and the unconverted man, however outwardly 
decorous, is the child of the wicked one. Now understand what 
I mean by regeneration. I do not mean baptism; I do not 
mean a decent outward change; but total transformation of cha- 
racter — a transition from a state of darkness, of distance, and of 
sin, to a state of light, of nearness to God, of holiness, and of 
happiness. I mean by it, not a mere ecclesiastical change, but 
life from the dead, or as it called by the apostle, "a new crea- 
ture." It is not, as some persons call it, thoughtfulness. That 
is not conversion. It is not seriousness, but regeneration : it is 
not becoming thoughtful, but it is being converted. It is not 
outward conformity to any requirement, but a thorough, inner, 
radical revolution of mind, of preference, of wishes, of hopes. 
It is not religious excitement; it is not ecclesiastical zeal; it is 
not an inappreciable and minute change, but it is as complete in 
the soul as the symbol that indicates it, "being born again." 

16* 



186 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

Do not deceive yourselves in this matter : depend upon it, it is 
far easier to know if we are so than many persons are disposed 
to admit. Many get rid of the responsibility of ascertaining if 
they are so, by pronouncing it very difficult and very delicate. 
Certainly, to pronounce upon others is a very doubtful and deli- 
cate point; but to pronounce upon ourselves is not so difficult a 
thing as our own passions and prejudices lead us to suppose. I 
ask you, can the sun rise to his meridian at noon and shine upon 
the earth, and we be unconscious of it ? Can the dead step forth 
from their tombs, and themselves not be aware of the change? 
Can the spring burst upon the earth, and make it break forth 
into blossom, verdure, and beauty, and we not know it? Can 
the slave be made free — the maniac be made rational, and nei- 
ther of them be conscious that a great change has overtaken 
them? And yet all these changes are not greater, but very 
much less than that change which must pass upon every man 
before he can see the kingdom of heaven; for it is written, 
" Except," and until a ye be born again, ye cannot see the king- 
dom of God." And therefore, my dear friends, whatever excel- 
lencies' you may have outwardly — and I do not wish to depre- 
ciate them — whatever external accomplishments you may have — 
and I do not wish to deny them — if they were weighed, the 
brightest of them all, against the definition of Christian charac- 
ter, as given by the Spirit of God, will be found utterly " want- 
ing." Then, if this be so, is there a question we can ask which 
more vitally concerns us than this — Are we born again? are we 
shams or realities? are we Christians or worldlings? are we 
transformed by the Spirit of God, or are we still " dead in tres- 
passes and sins?" If I have overstated the doctrine, then you 
may despise it; but if I have understated it, which is what 1 
have done, then, my dear friends, carry home with you this 
night this deep, personal, individual impression, that whatever 
you may have be, whatever you may have given, whatever you 
may have suffered, whatever you have sacrificed, however you 
may have been baptized, at whatever church or chapel you may 
worship, "except ye be born again, you cannot see the kingdom 
of God." 

Let me, in the next place, state this — men are " weighed and 



WEIGHED AND FOUND WANTING. 187 

found wanting" when they are living, constantly living, at this 
moment in the practice of any known, deliberate, and voluntary 
sin. It is true of every man at every moment, "if we say we 
have no sin we deceive ourselves;" but it is as true of the 
Christian at every moment, that he wars against all transgres- 
sions, and becomes every day, like the shining light, more and 
more victorious. Do not in this matter deceive yourselves. If 
you harbour deliberately pride, vain-glory, avarice, ambition, 
murmuring, discontent, bitterness, evil-speaking, lying, and slan- 
dering — if these sins you knowingly indulge in, then, my dear 
friends, you give evidence in so far, that you are not born again 
— that you have not the Christian character that will stand — 
that you are in the category and condition of those who, when 
weighed in the scales in order to ascertain if they are fit for the 
kingdom of heaven, have in them that amount of alloy which 
destroys all the value of the gold : they have not reached the 
standard — they cannot be stamped with the impress of divine 
approval — they must be rejected as reprobate and worthless 
gold. 

They, too, in the next place, are " weighed and found want- 
ing," who do not exhibit in their character the distinctive and 
peculiar features of the gospel of Christ. Many men are consti- 
tutionally moral, and the man who is addicted to one sin from 
his constitutional temperament, is generally found the most elo- 
quent denouncer of him who lives in the sin to which he is not 
naturally prone. There may be very moral men who neverthe- 
less are not Christians. If I understand the object of the gos- 
pel, it is not simply to make us moral, but to make us more than 
moral — a a holy nation, a peculiar people — a chosen generation, 
zealous of good works." Surely Christ did not die — surely Pen- 
tecost did not dawn, in order that we might be just like the rest 
of mankind, in order that it might be very difficult to distin- 
guish whether we are Christians or not. The little space be- 
tween us and the world is proof. I fear the world has not made 
a nearer approach to us, but that we have made a nearer descent 
toward the world. If I read the Scriptures aright — and it is so 
clear in these cases that he that reads it may run while he reads 
it — Christians are a people distinguished and separate from the 



188 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

rest of the world; they belong to an empire of glory and of 
beauty, so impressive, that the world's enmity is provoked by 
the contrast. I ask you if you are the subjects of this empire? 
if you, not separating myself from you, are characterized by the 
features of them who are heirs of God — who are followers of the 
Lamb — who are witnesses for Christ — who let their light so 
shine before men that others, seeing their good works, might glo- 
rify their Father in heaven. 

All these, I would notice, are u weighed and found wanting" — 
wanting in their fitness for heaven, which is just as necessaiy 
as their title to heaven, of which I have already spoken. Never 
forget this great truth, that we need two things in order to 
reach heaven; we need as much the work of the Spirit of God 
within us to fit us for heaven, as we need the work and the 
righteousness of Christ without us to entitle us to heaven; and 
the man whose heart has not been changed by the Spirit's 
power, may depend upon it, that he is destitute of any thing 
like a title that will admit him to the presence of God and of 
the Lamb. 

I have looked at man then as " weighed and defective" in his 
title; I am looking at him now as " weighed and defective" in 
his fitness for the kingdom of heaven : and I observe, that they 
are " weighed and found wanting," who take deeper interest in 
the affairs of the world than they take in those of Christ. One 
of the characteristics of earthly minds given by the apostle is, 
" who mind earthly things." One of the characteristics of the 
people of God is, " whose conversation, i. e. their conduct, their 
sympathies, their feelings, are all in heaven. I ask you, what is 
the predominating tone in your mind, what is the great direction 
in which you are impelled ? where runs, and to what runs the 
main current of all your sympathies, your affections, your hopes, 
and your desires ? We are not, my dear friends, borne to heaven 
accidentally : no man goes to heaven but he that sets his heart 
thitherward. Ask yourselves then, Do you mind earthly things, 
or heavenly things ? what is the aim, the object, the predomi- 
nating desire of your mind ? where is your heart ? what is your 
treasure ? for whom do you chiefly live ? These are weighty 
questions : they are scriptural ones ; your response to them will 



WEIGHED AND FOUND WANTING. J. 39 

determine whether you are or are not wanting in fitness for hea- 
ven, and in real Christian character. 

In the next place, they are wanting when weighed in the scales 
of the sanctuary, who do not aid the cause of Christ and its ex- 
tension through the world by their prayers, their efforts, their 
means, and their exertions. If you he a Christian, you must he 
a missionary. I doubt if it be possible to be a Christian oneself 
and not to be consumed by an absorbing desire to make all the 
world Christians too. I ask, then, if, when you hear that there 
are minds unenlightened by the glorious gospel — that there are 
children uninstructed in the things that belong to their present and 
their everlasting peace — -that there are Bibles needed, that there 
are missionaries to be sent, in order that the blessings of Chris- 
tianity may be advanced, however poor your means may be, how- 
ever inadequate to the demands and exigencies of the case, can it 
then be said of you, as was said of the woman in the gospel, 
" She hath done what she could V If you were poor, or hungry, 
or thirsty, or naked, would you call him a friend who refused to 
give you food, and water, and raiment? But Christ identifies 
himself with all the needy upon earth, when he says, " Inasmuch 
as ye did it unto them ye did it unto me." There cannot be the 
supreme love of Christ within you unless there is corresponding 
sympathy with God's people without you. It is thus, then, that 
I have asked you to weigh your own condition against what seems 
to be the characteristics of a Christian, and to ascertain if, in the 
sight of God, you are of those who are u made meet for the inherit- 
ance of the saints in light," or among those who give obvious 
evidence that they have no lot or part in this matter. I may ap- 
ply the same great truth to official personages. Let me apply it 
to a minister of the gospel. Such an one may be gifted, eloquent, 
versed in theology, outwardly moral, laborious in all pastoral 
duties ; and yet, weighed in the scales of the sanctuary, he may 
be " altogether wanting." Gifts need not be graces of the Spirit 
of God. There may be the eloquence of the gifted tongue without 
the unction of the consecrated heart. There may be the ordina-r 
tion of the bishop or the presbytery, but not the consecration which 
God's Holy Spirit alone can give. He may have all gifts, all 
eloquence, all theological knowledge, all polite learning — yet, if 



190 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

wanting in singleness of eye, unity of purpose, earnest devoted- 
ness to the true end of his office, the conversion of souls, and the 
glory of God, however he may be applauded by the tongues of 
men, weighed in the scales of the sanctuary, he too is " altogether 
wanting." 

So I may apply these words to a church. It may have all that 
Csesar can give — able ministers, a splendid literature, the rich and 
the great in its audience, and yet it may be wanting in all that 
constitutes the church of Christ. The architect can build a 
glorious cathedral j Christ's presence alone can make it a church. 
The builder may raise a magnificent edifice, the queen's presence 
alone can make it a palace. The orator may preach so that the 
crowd may be thrilled with his oratory, impressed with his reason- 
ing, riveted by his appeals ; but he may not be a minister, and 
that crowd may not be a church : — " Where two or three are 
gathered together in my name" — that is the essential — " there 
am I in the midst of them." No presence can compensate for 
the absence of this. No patronage can be a substitute for this. 
Laodicea said, "I am rich and increased with goods, and have 
need of nothing ;" and at the very moment when she was saying 
so, Christ was weighing her in the scales of the sanctuary, and 
he pronounced of her, " tekel;" thou art weighed in the balances; 
" thou knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and 
poor, and blind, and naked." 

In the same manner I may apply these words to a nation. It 
was applied in the passage on which I am now commenting to a 
nation — namely, to that great kingdom over which Belshazzar 
reigned. A nation may have brave soldiers, hardy sailors, gifted 
legislators, eloquent senators, prosperous trade, thriving agricul- 
ture, all the splendour and power, all the material strength of 
Imperial Rome, all the glory and the literary fame of Athens, 
and yet that nation, when weighed in the scales, may be altogether 
" wanting." Its aim may be territorial aggrandizement — its sole 
passion may be ambition — its eloquence, its efforts, its arms may 
all be exerted in favour of conquest and aggression — it may not 
be seeking the glory of its God, but the supremacy and the 
immortality of itself. Never forget that a nation's sinews are its 
Christians; its battlements are its principles; its guide is, or 



WEIGHED AND FOUND WANTING. 191 

ought to be, the word of God. Real principle running through 
a land, pervading every institution, giving its tone to all its varied 
national crystallization — not expediency — is power, and strength, 
and immortality. A nation has not done its duty when it builds 
jails; it has not done all it ought to do, when it pays a police. There 
is something higher, nobler, more precious than all this ; and if 
it fail here, when weighed in the scales it will be found to be 
" tekel}" and its doom is written, " Mene, mene, tekel, upkar- 
sin;" its years are numbered; it is weighed in the balances, and 
found wanting. 

Such then, are some of the practical thoughts arising out of the 
words I have now read. Let me ask you now, in closing my re- 
marks, to examine yourselves. Is there any thing wanting in 
your title — any thing deficient in your fitness for heaven ? For- 
get not, my dear friends, that it is possible to be " almost a 
Christian," and not to be saved. It is possible to reach nine 
points of Christian character, and to perish because you have not 
the tenth. To be almost saved, is only to be condemned with a 
more terrible judgment. The very height from which you fall 
renders that fall the more disastrous. 

And, in the next place, let there be, after the examination of 
our hearts, deep humility. All that is in us is fitted to humble 
us ; and the man that knows himself best will feel most humbled 
in the sight of God. All present will have some share in the 
common inscription upon the greatest and the lowest : " Tekel ; 
Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting." 

And let us recollect, in the next place, that if, under a deep 
sense of the pressure of that perilous condition, we cry with our 
whole heart unto God, that he will save us — if conscious that we 
have not a farthing to pay we ask him frankly to forgive us all — 
if conscious that, when weighed against this law, we must kick 
the beam, and be found altogether wanting — let us fly to that 
righteousness which alone can justify us, let us seek shelter in 
that City of Refuge in which alone we can be saved — let us ap- 
peal to that cleansing blood which alone can wash away the in- 
scription " tekel," and that righteousness which alone can con- 
stitute our title as " accepted and beloved." Each minute as it 
passes carries us nearer to the burial-place of the dead, and to the 



192 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

judgnient-seat of the living. A few more years, and those faces 
that are now looking, I trust, with anxious thoughts, will be 
numbered with the dead, and our souls, those live sparks that 
never can be quenched — those great and sacred " bundles of re- 
sponsibilities" which can never die, will have to stand at the 
judgment-seat of Grod, either shivering and looking into' that un- 
known, unfathomed abyss of wo, or rejoicing, clothed in the 
righteousness of Christ, and anticipating that joy, that inhe- 
ritance, that blessedness which is incorruptible and fadeth not 
away. My dear friends, deal honestly with yourselves; have 
done with church, with ceremony, with sign, with sacrament, till 
you have settled this question, Am I a child of Grod, or am I not ? 
I believe that nine-tenths of the controversies of the day are the 
devil's delusions to prevent men from settling God's great con- 
troversy, " Are we the children of Grod, or the children of the 
wicked one V 



193 



CHAPTER XXY. 



THE PRIME MINISTER. 

" It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom an hundred and twenty princes, 
■which should be over the whole kingdom; and over these three presidents, of 
whom Daniel was first : that the princes might give accounts unto them, and 
the king should have no damage. Then this Daniel was preferred above the 
presidents and princes, because an excellent spirit was in him ; and the king 
thought to set him over the whole realm. Then the presidents and princes 
sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom; but they could 
find none occasion or fault; forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there 
any error or fault found in him. Then said these men, We shall not find any 
occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law 
of his God. Then these presidents and princes assembled together to the king, 
and said thus unto him, King Darius, live for ever. All the presidents of the 
kingdom, the governors, and the princes, the counsellors, and the captains, 
have consulted together to establish a royal statute, and to make a firm decree, 
that whosoever shall ask a petition of any god or man for thirty days, save of 
thee, king, he shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, king, establish the 
decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, according to the law of 
the Medes and Persians, which altereth not. Wherefore king Darius signed 
the writing and the decree. Now when Daniel knew that the writing was 
signed, he went into his house : and his windows being open in his chamber 
toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, 
and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime." — Daniel vi. 1-10. 

We read in the previous chapters that great Babylon, the ex- 
cellency of the Chaldees, had passed away, and that on the very 
night when the mysterious fingers wrote the long inexplicable 
inscription on the plaster, Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, 
was slain, and Darius, the king of the Medo-Persian empire, 
mounted its forsaken throne and received the reins of govern- 
ment. . It was after this, and on the crumbling ruins of Babylon, 
that the Medo-Persian empire rose to splendour, and occupied 
its brief space in the history of the world. Darius, who was ap- 
pointed to be king, was, of course, a heathen; but, heathen as 

17 



194 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

lie was, he saw something in the character and general conduct 
of Daniel, which led hirn to believe that there was no one more 
worthy of a dignified place, a place of power and responsibility, 
than Daniel ; the Christian, as we may truly call him, — the Jew, 
as he nationally was. He had witnessed his skill in solving a 
mysterious inscription; a skill which indicated communion with 
the fountain of wisdom : he saw strongly developed prudence, 
integrity, talent, steadfastness, and even success in all he under- 
took; and, amid his own gross superstition, his eyes could not 
fail to distinguish so remarkable a subject, nor his own sense of 
propriety and advantage fail to see in that captive Jew a meet- 
ness for service as rare as valuable. They who do not understand 
a Christian's creed, will and do appreciate a Christian's walk. 
Heathens understand a pure and noble life, even if they do not 
comprehend an orthodox creed. We learn from the impression 
produced upon Darius by the conduct of Daniel — a conduct 
which there is abundant evidence to show was unobtrusive and 
retiring, that real Christianity cannot be hid. If you are not a 
Christian it is of no use for you to call yourself one, or to pre- 
tend to be one, for the eye even of the most casual observer will 
be able to penetrate the vail of hypocrisy, and detect the sham 
and pretension that are beneath; and if you are a Christian, you 
need not proclaim the fact in the market-place. Depend upon 
it, wherever real Christianity reigns in the heart, it will press out- 
ward and outward, and unite its name and impress its influence 
upon the place you occupy — the duties of the office intrusted to 
you — upon the family — the nation — upon all over whom, in the 
providence of God, you are placed. If there be health in the 
heart it will bloom on the cheek ; if there be vigour in the muscles 
it will show itself in your walk. If there be salt in the earth it 
will spread; if there be light, it will shine; if the city be set 
upon a hill, it cannot be hid; if the epistle be written by the 
Holy Spirit, the apostle tells us it will be seen and read of all 
men. Or, in the words of another sacred penman, all that see 
them "shall take knowledge of them that they have been with 
Jesus." The man who walks with Grod, we are told by the 
Psalmist — the man who shrinks from the scorner's chair, whose 
delight is in the law of the Lord, will not be hid, but he will be 



THE PRIME MINISTER. 195 

"like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth 
his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither, and what- 
soever he doeth it shall prosper." 

Trials and afflictions do not hide, but rather bring out only the 
more the Christian's character; instead of darkening, they brighten 
it; and many a one whom you have suspected to be a stranger to 
the gospel, when placed in the furnace, displays the most beauti- 
ful and impressive sense of a long-tried and deep union and com- 
munion with G-od. It is in affliction that the Christian shines; 
it is in the furnace that the dross is consumed, and the pure vir- 
gin gold glows in all its lustre and beauty : it is under circum- 
stances of affliction and distress that divine graces are implanted 
in the heart by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, which 
will rise to the surface and prove to all men, what they cannot 
fail to notice in the character and conduct of real believers, "'that 
they have been with Jesus." And this irrepressible nature of 
real Christianity is matter of the deepest gratitude and joy. Are 
you not thankful that it is so ? would it not be a pity that one 
truth in the gospel should be capable of being concealed? what 
article in your creed would a Christian wish to hide ? What fruit 
in that cluster of " fruits of the Spirit," of which we read in the 
fifth chapter of the epistle addressed to the Galatians, would you 
wish to conceal ? Let the miser hide his gold — let the admired 
of all conceal her beauty — let rank be ashamed of its honours — 
let the infidel conceal his skepticism, but let not the Christian be 
ashamed of that which is the ornament of the earth, the beauty 
of heaven, which gives weight to the lightest, and dignity at 
once to the greatest and the meanest of mankind. Thank God, 
then, that Christianity cannot be hid ; and that where it is, there 
it will be felt and seen, and men will own that it is so. 

I may state, too, that it is this silent but continuous and 
irrepressible power of Christian principle, which really tells upon 
the world around us. It is not a mere syllogism that will con- 
vert a skeptic. It is not a powerfully constructed argument that 
will alone convert a Roman Catholic : it is not such specimens 
of Christianity as church and chapel often furnish, which will 
make men feel that Christianity is the ambassadress of God 
and the benefactress of mankind. It is when the world sees 



196 PROPHETIC STUDIES 

Christianity softening all, sweetening, subduing, sanctifying, in- 
spiring, directing all — giving its tone, shape, and colour, and 
freshness to all ; it is when the world sees Christianity in self- 
sacrifice — in submitting our own temper and our own inclina- 
tions to those of others — in giving way and suffering, rather 
than appearing to dictate and presume — it is in the quiet by- 
paths of human life, that Christianity acts with the greatest 
force, and in which, if detected by the skeptic, he owns there 
is there the finger of God, the evidence of a power greater and 
holier than human. So Darius saw Daniel's Christianity: he 
understood not his sublime creed, but he appreciated his honesty, 
his integrity, his truth, his faithfulness. The world itself, if it do 
not practise, yet appreciates faithfulness and integrity. The mer- 
chant on the Exchange understands character, when he neither stu- 
dies nor subscribes a creed. Hence the pulpit is not the only place 
for preaching. 

Darius saw that integrity of conduct was an admirable qua- 
lification for a prime minister's office — that the man who prayed 
to his God was not the least likely to be useful to his king. 
Even the heathen Darius saw that the most admirable elements 
of political efficiency were, not party zeal and partisan enthu- 
siasm, but faithfulness, integrity, honour — all that constitute 
these moral characteristics, which are the creations of Chris- 
tianity in their greatest brightness; and have been often, but 
less distinctly, illustrated even by the heathens in their deepest 
degradation. Darius unquestionably was right : the true Christian 
is ever the greatest patriot. The men who are restless, dis- 
contented, fond of change for change's sake, are not generally 
those who have family worship and well-read Bibles, and who 
are seen oftenest in the sanctuary; and on the other hand, the 
men who are most loyal to their sovereign — most attached to 
their country — most devoted to its best interests — most courage- 
ous on the field, most steadfast on the deck — most dutiful in 
all things, generally are actuated by motives inspired by the 
truth of God, and distinguished by actions influenced by the con- 
tinual recollection of this great truth — "Thou God seest me." 

It is no argument against all this, that there are hypocrites 
who make their pretensions to religion a passport to distin- 



THE PRIME MINISTER, 197 

guislied notice, or to political power. Whatever is excellent has 
been imitated ever since the world was. Never yet was there 
a coin current in a realm that was not forged: never yet was 
there a good bank-note that was not imitated. You do not say 
the thing itself is bad, because there is a mockery of it. You 
do not reject the good bank-note because there are bad ones in 
the market. It is one thing to be a Christian, it is another 
and a very different thing only to pretend to be so. And be- 
cause there are some men who pretend to be Christians and are 
not, you are not therefore to suspect that every man who seems 
to be a Christian is not so. In your own conduct, rather be 
suspected not to be a Christian than sound a trumpet to pro- 
claim that you are so. Let your Christianity be an inference 
that the world might draw in the exercise of its reason, rather 
than a proclamation in the market-place. 

Daniel did not proclaim his religion. He did not thrust him- 
self into the palace of Belshazzar; and because he was faithful 
to his God, he did not therefore act discourteously toward his 
king. But the instant he was sent for he appeared, and he 
acted as a Christian ever will. He did not use his religion in 
order to obtain political power : he did not make his commu- 
nion to be a passport to political office ; but he lived as a 
Christian, and left the world to notice him or not, as the world 
pleased. 

Daniel was promoted to be prime minister in one of the 
greatest empires on which the sun shone. But, like many prime 
ministers of every country and of every age, the elevation to 
which his virtues raised him created envy, calumny, and suspicion. 
I doubt whether elevation in this world is so desirable a 
thing as man's ignorant ambition makes him think. He that 
is placed upon the loftiest pinnacle, "the observed of all ob- 
servers/' is sure to create, or at least see projected around him, 
a dark, long-drawn shadow of envy, jealousy, suspicion, and all 
uncharitableness; not because he acts inconsistently, but be- 
cause self-seeking and dishonest spirits, ever at enmity to truth 
and integrity, the highest beauty, hate the man in proportion 
as he is the personation of them all. They disliked Daniel, and 
they could not say why : they could not veto him, because he 



198 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

was a royal appointment; they could not dismiss him, for they 
had not the power; and Daniel occupied, therefore, the most 
painful and perplexing of all positions — an honest prime minister 
presiding over a dishonest, an antichristian, and an unmanageable 
cabinet. They could find, however, no fault or cause of com- 
plaint against him, so they determined, in their envy and ma- 
lignity, to create one. They endeavoured to find out that his 
policy was bad — that he had been open to bribery — that he was 
unfaithful, but they did not, and could not, succeed ; they could 
find none occasion of fault, inasmuch as he was faithful in all 
things. He was a perfect phenomenon in an Eastern court, 
where bribery ever has been, and is, to this day, universal; and 
where a bribe can blind the eye of justice, or shut the mouth 
of truth, or promote or put down, just as the man in power 
thinks expedient, or most conducive to his own interests. They 
found that Daniel, however, was faithful, neither was there any 
error or fault found in him.- Why, then, did they so dislike 
him? why hate this good man? Plato asserted, that if Truth 
were to come down from heaven, and display itself in all its 
glory upon earth, all men would instantly fall down and wor- 
ship it. What Plato stated as an hypothesis, inspired history 
records to have been a lamentable miscalculation on his part. 
Truth came down from the skies — appeared upon the world 
in untainted glory, beauty, and perfection; neither hell nor earth 
was able to detect a flaw in it; but so false proved the prophecy 
of the learned and accomplished philosopher, that the world rose 
up against it, and shouted in a voice of thunder — " Away 
with him, away with him ! crucify him, crucify him ! Not this 
man, but Barabbas." If Plato had known what the child in 
our Sunday school or ragged school is now being taught, that 
"the heart of man is enmity against G-od," he would not have 
uttered any such prediction. 

What was the fault his cabinet urged against the detested 
Daniel ? First, he was a comparatively young man, while many 
of these princes and counsellors were probably aged men : he 
was a junior promoted over the heads of his seniors; this was 
an old offence, and an offence that is felt in every profession. 
But when the junior displays intellect, genius, talent, discre- 



THE PRIME MINISTER. 199 

tion, prudence, heroism, devotedness, such as his seniors do not 
display, all will soon learn to forget that he is young, and to 
feel that it is not years, but excellence, that constitutes the re- 
quisite to command the veneration of mankind. Probably they 
also hated and envied him because he was a Jew. Religious 
prejudices are not extinct even amid the light of the nineteenth 
century. We do not like to see one promoted who is not of 
our sect; we are offended if one of a rival party is advanced 
to power. And these men were worshippers of Bel: they as- 
sembled in the temple of Bel for worship, and they were indig- 
nant that a worshipper of Jehovah, the God of the captive and 
detested Jew, should be advanced to the highest post of honour 
and authority in that great empire. And partly, perhaps, they 
hated and envied him, because he was a stranger and a captive. 
Daniel was one of the spoils of war — a slave ; and though of 
royal family, he was held as a captive in the midst of Babylon ; 
and the haughty princes of that mighty monarch could not endure 
the insult of a Hebrew slave being made chief ruler over all 
of them. But the grand reason, in which they all concurred, 
no doubt was, that Daniel's integrity stood in the way of their 
enrichment. He would not take the bribes which they were 
accustomed to receive ; he did not approve of cheating, which 
they thought was canonical, and had made almost legal ; they 
loved the wages of unrighteousness, while he hated them; and, 
like bold, bad men, they detested him, and determined on his 
destruction. The great difficulty was, where to obtain a pre- 
text for getting rid of him. They could find none whatever in 
his management of the kingdom: he dispensed his patronage 
with perfect justice; he redressed the wrongs that were submitted 
to him with the greatest impartiality; he gave such good counsel 
to his gracious sovereign, that all that that sovereign did prospered. 
They could find nothing against the character of Daniel as 
touching the kingdom over which he presided with such dignity 
and justice, and with so remarkable success. But they saw 
that be had a different religion; and if they could not impeach 
him as a prime minister, they might assail him through the 
dogmas of his creed as a Jew. They proceeded with great skill 
and artifice, and formed the scheme recorded in verses 6—9 : 



200 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

" The presidents of the kingdom, th<3 governors, and the princes, the 
counsellors, and the captains, have consulted to establish a royal 
statute, and to make a firm decree, that whosoever shall ask a 
petition of any Grod or man for thirty days, save of thee, king, 
he shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, king, establish the 
decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, according 
to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not. 
Wherefore king Darius signed the writing and the decree." 

The quiet self-possession of Daniel on this occasion was com- 
plete. "Now, when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, 
he went into his house ; and his windows being open in his 
chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three 
times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his Grod, as 
he did aforetime." We are not to be the slaves of circumstance, 
but circumstances are to be slaves to us. I am not to do wrong 
because circumstances urge me to clo so; but I am to do right 
in the face of all danger, and in spite of all threats. We have 
continually, in the army and in the navy, instances of military self- 
possession the most remarkable, showing how even the natural man 
may be drilled into a state of discipline, subordination, and obedience 
to a human leader, that will make him fearless amid all the ele- 
ments of terror and of death. I recollect reading, that when Mar- 
shal Massena was marching at the head of a body of Napoleon's 
victorious troops, through the gorge of the Cardinell, in the Alps, 
a vast avalanche descended from the heights above, and swept into 
the valley below some hundreds of his soldiers; and on the very 
ridge of the snow that was swept into the ravine beneath, was a 
drummer-boy, who, undisturbed amid the peril, continued beating 
the march he had commenced before the avalanche fell, until every 
soldier had passed through the gorge ; this was his own funeral 
march : he then sank down to die — an instance of the effective 
discipline which then prevailed in the French army. One of Na- 
poleon's greatest marshals never felt himself perfectly calm and 
self-possessed till the dead fell in thousands round him, and the 
tide of battle seemed rolling against him ; — showing how human 
nature, in circumstances of great trial, may feel great calmness, 
and do its duty with unshaken and unflinching nerve. But if 
discipline can do this, Christianity can do more. It could make 



THE PRIME MINISTER. 201 

Daniel calm in the prospect of certain death ; it could make Poly- 
carp regard the flames only as a chariot that wafted him to glory ; 
it could make the apostles feel bonds, imprisonment, and death, 
to be not calamities, but blessings, because they took them from 
scenes of suffering and conveyed them to the realms of glory. A 
Christian has ever felt — and in proportion to the depth and force 
of his Christianity he ever will feel — that " the work of righteous- 
ness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness, and 
assurance for ever." " Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose 
mind is stayed on thee." And I believe that if our Christian prin- 
ciple were what it should be, and what we are responsible for its being, 
though the mountains were cast into the midst of the sea, and 
though the earth should shake and vibrate with the swelling thereof, 
— though all things should seem to prognosticate the return of chaos, 
ruin, and destruction, — a Christian would hear and accept, sounding 
from his Father's lips, those beautiful and soothing accents, u Be 
still, and know that I am God." So Daniel learned and felt. 

Would that our confidence in God were deeper than it is ! We 
should not then be in the depths to-day and in the heights to- 
morrow; we should not be so often surprised, alarmed at this, and 
afraid of that. Do not think, my dear friends, that you and I are 
indispensable to the government of God. God governs ; he controls 
the universe and all its movements; and he is working out his own 
bright and beneficent designs, sometimes with us, as often without 
us, and occasionally in spite of us. Have confidence in God, confi- 
dence in our Father's love, confidence in his wisdom — a deep and 
indestructible persuasion that " all things work together for good 
to them that love God, and are the called according to his purpose." 

But in looking at the manner in which Daniel discharged his 
duty, there seems at first sight to be in it something like ostenta- 
tion, or something, at least, rather inexplicable as to its absolute 
necessity, in the attitude which he assumed. It is stated, that 
his windows being open, he kneeled upon his knees, in his cham- 
ber, toward Jerusalem, and prayed in that direction. What was 
meant by his thus " praying toward Jerusalem ?" We have it 
explained in the prayer of Solomon, at the dedication of the temple, 
in which he says, "If they," thy people, "sip against thee, (for 
there is no man that sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, 



202 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away cap- 
tives unto the land of the enemy far or near : yet if they shall 
bethink themselves in the land whither they were carried captives, 
and repent, and make supplication unto thee in the land of them 
that carried them captives, saying, We have sinned, and have done 
perversely, we have committed wickedness ; and so return unto 
thee with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of 
their enemies, which led them away captive, and pray unto thee 
toward their land, which thou gavest unto their fathers, the city 
which thou hast chosen, and the house which I have built for thy 
name : then hear thou their prayer and their supplication in 
heaven thy dwelling-place, and maintain their cause." 

Hence every pious Jew, when he prayed, " kneeled upon his 
knees/ 7 or stood, the other attitude of prayer, according to the cus- 
tom of the Jews; and, wherever he was, directed his face invariably 
toward Jerusalem. The reason why the Jew did so, was that 
the temple and the furniture within it constituted the only type 
that he had of Jesus, the great Mediator between heaven and 
earth. He rested his eye upon the significant sign of the only 
Mediator every time he prayed, and did in that dispensation, by a 
figure, what we in this dispensation do in fact — prayed in the 
name, leaning on the intercession, trusting to the mediation of 
Jesus. But if you were to argue, as certain very superstitious 
persons do argue, that because the Jews did so in the days of Levi 
or Solomon, therefore we, too, when we pray, ought to turn our 
faces toward the east j or, if you were to contend that when we 
build churches we should build them with their chancels, or what 
some ignorantly term their altars, toward the east, you would be 
just doing precisely what the Gralatians did; letting go the liberty 
wherewith Christ hath made you free : there would be in that fact 
a reflux to Judaism. You are thereby displacing Christ, the only 
Mediator, and substituting an exhausted type, a shrivelled symbol, 
in the room of him who is its substance, its reality, and its end. 
The law of the worship of the Jew- was, "Pray with the face 
toward Jerusalem f the great law of the worship of the Christian 
is, "Pray in the name of Jesus. " What constituted the church 
with the Jew was, his having that very temple, those very stones, 
that grand altar, those overshadowing cherubim, those bright 



THE PRIIME MINSTER. 203 

beams of the ineffable glory ; but what constitutes our church is, 
not dead stones, but living ones ; not the glory that is visible and 
palpable, but that bright glory which consists of the mingling 
beams of mercy and truth that have met together — righteousness 
and peace that have kissed each other. And hence there is a 
Christian church, and a true and acceptable worship, wherever, on 
the sea-shore or on the mountain-side ; on the tessellated pavement 
or in the public highway ; within the communion rail, in the 
pulpit, or in the pew ; on the deck, in the city, in the field ; in the 
deepest mine to which the miner can descend, and on the loftiest 
pinnacle to which the Alpine herdsman can climb ; wherever 
there are two or three met in the name of Jesus, there is a temple 
more glorious than that of Jerusalem; there is a temple of the 
Holy Ghost, in which G-od dwells, and where all his glory is 
manifested in another way than that in which he manifests it to 
the world. 

We see then the reason why Daniel prayed, looking toward 
the east. But it certainly does, at first sight, appear somewhat 
difficult to reconcile his conduct, in having his window open, with 
the idea that there was nothing in what Daniel did resembling 
pride, ostentation, or the needless thrusting forward of his custom 
in the face of the heathen nation among whom he dwelt. It is best 
explained by the fact, that the Jews' houses were built with flat 
roofs, and on the top of each flat-roofed house there was what is 
called in the Acts of the Apostles "an upper room," not corre- 
sponding to our garret, but a sort of chamber built upon the flat 
roof, in which the pious Jew sequestered himself from the world, 
read the law, prayed, and held communion with G-od. And in the 
Septuagint translation of this very book — i. e. the translation from 
the Hebrew into Greek, executed by the Alexandrian Jews three 
hundred years prior to the birth of Christ — the word that is used 
for "his chamber" means, literally, "he retired b; roTq uirepwocq," 
the very word that is used in the Acts of the Apostles to denote 
the place in which the Christians met at Pentecost, and where 
they where accustomed to worship G-od. And from the Acts of 
the Apostles it is evident that the upper room was the ordinary 
place, the most sacred and the most sequestered of all the rooms in 
the house, whither the Jew betook himself for prayer. And 



204 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

when Daniel therefore retired to his upper room, with the windows 
open toward Jerusalem it was not for the purpose of displaying his 
religious firmness, or for the purpose of defying those whom he 
knew to have conspired against his life, but he did that which he 
had always been accustomed to do, — prayed with his face toward 
Jerusalem, and seeking the blessing and the presence of his God. 
It is thus in this simple fact then, and in this beautiful habit, that 
you have a chapter of the inner life of Daniel, the prime minister 
of Darius the king of Persia. His inner life was fed by prayer -, 
his outer life was characterized by integrity, faithfulness, and 
justice. It was his home habits that made his court habits so beau- 
tiful, and just, and true ; it was his private nearness to God that 
sustained and elevated his public consistency before men. I hope 
there are such statesmen still who preface their policy by their com- 
munion with God. Would it not be the loftiest dignity, were the 
highest in the land to prostrate themselves before the King of 
kings, the Prince of the kings of the earth, and not seek to devise, to 
meditate, to plan,till first there had been implored an abundant bless- 
ing from Him, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is wise, 
nothing is holy, and nothing can prosper. An hour in " the upper 
room," in communion with God, before spending many hours in 
the House of Lords or in the House of Commons in transacting 
the business of the empire, is a recommendation worth all the 
political qualifications that a man can have. Depend upon it 
that God will not bless in politicians what he does not bless in 
private men, — the habit of trying to work the world without 
God. Depend upon it, he will not prosper measures in the high 
places of the earth which he will not prosper in the humble places 
of the earth, when those measures are concerted and attempted 
without recognising him. It should be written on the heads of 
princes, on palaces, and cabinets, " By me kings reign and princes 
decree justice." 

And is it not a privilege as well as a duty, to have prayer? I 
need not dwell upon the nature of prayer ; for I trust there is not 
a Christian in this assembly who knows not what it is. It is not 
a thing to be taught : it is the deepest instinct of humanity. It 
is, in my judgment, just as natural to pray as it is to breathe. 
And what the Spirit teaches — without whose teaching prayer will 



THE PRIME MINISTER. 205 

not "be the incense that rises to heaven — is to pray for things that 
are truly good, in the name of him through whom those things 
are given; and in every Christian's heart such prayer is an irre- 
pressible instinct. He cannot live without it, he cannot move 
without it. He feels that a prayerless man is a graceless man ; 
and that the enterprise he commences without asking God to bless 
it, is one in which he can expect no great success. God asks the 
tribute of your acknowledgment of him, and he will give you all 
the blessings of success ; " for whatsoever such an one doeth shall 
prosper." Pray in your closets ; pray in the house of business ; 
pray when you are walking upon the highway. Shut your doors ; 
sound not the trumpet ; make no display ; but lift the heart 
daily — three times a day if you like — at stated hours and in 
stated places, if you like, for these remind you of the habit ; but 
u pray." Pray that God would give you grace for each day, (for 
there is only promise for the day,) that he will give you bread 
for each day : that he will give you " forgiveness of your sins, 
and an inheritance among all them that are sanctified/' Great 
soldiers of our country, the great Washington of America prayed 
upon the field of battle ; prayed under that stern and terrible ne- 
cessity of nations where men made in the image of God take part 
in the dire shock of battle — prayed at such a crisis, that the God 
of justice would decide the conflict. Let us pray in approaching 
a communion-table, in approaching the judgment- seat at which 
we must appear ; knowing that whatsoever we shall ask in the 
name of Jesus believing, he will give it us. Pray, and you will 
prosper upon earth ; pray, and you will find your prayers on earth 
lost in the praises of eternity, through Jesus Christ. 






J 8 






206 



LECTURE XV. 

DANIEL IN THE DEN OF LIONS. 

" Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel, and cast him into the 
den of lions. Now the king spake and said unto Daniel, Thy God whom thou 
servest continually, he will deliver thee." — Daniel vi. 16. 

Looking at the whole treatment and experience of Daniel, one 
cannot but feel how truly our Lord spoke, when he said, " In the 
world ye shall have tribulation/ 7 It needs but a very limited ac- 
quaintance with the history of the people of God. to see that the 
most illustrious and the most distinguished of them have been the 
victims of the most continuous and unmerited suffering. They 
have been stoned, they have been sawn asunder, they have been 
tempted, they have been slain with the sword : they have wan- 
dered in sheepskins and goatskins, in deus and caves of the earth, 
being destitute, afflicted, tormented — although the world was not 
worthy of them. And yet through that faith which overcame 
the world, " they stopped the mouths of lions," says the apostle, 
alluding to the case of Daniel, "and quenched the violence of 
fire," alluding to the case of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. 

When the world sees Christians, like Daniel, thus condemned, 
set apart for punishment and inevitable death, it exclaims, " God 
hath forgotten him : he trusted in God that he would deliver 
him; let Him deliver him, seeing he hath pleasure in Him." 
But amid all the taunts of the world, and the revilings of the 
worldly wise, the child of God can hear, notwithstanding the 
clamour of a thousand tongues, the still small voice, the voice of 
his Father in the skies, sounding in his heart, unspent by the 
distance through which it passes in its transit, and saying, "I will 
never leave thee, I will never forsake thee. A mother may for- 
get her infant, that she should not have compassion on the son 
of her womb, yet will not I forget thee." And thus, in spite of 
the world's clamour, and because he hears his Father's voice, the 



DANIEL IN THE DEN OF LIONS. 207 

Christian enjoys in the world peace, quietness, and assurance for 
ever ; and when he is placed in the lion's den with Daniel, or 
walks amid the flames of the burning fiery furnace with Shaclrach, 
Meshach, and Abed-nego ; whether he is crucified with Peter, or 
cast to the wild beasts with Paul, he can begin, in the agonies of 
death, the psean of a noble victory — " I am persuaded that neither 
life, nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor 
things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor 
any other creature, shall be able to separate me- from the love of 
G-od that is in Christ Jesus my Lord." 

I need not say that when Daniel was thus condemned by the 
king — and condemned by the king who was ensnared by the sub- 
tlety and wiles of these wicked men — he expected death, and that 
death a very terrible one. Death is not a natural thing : it is 
the most horrible and unnatural of all things. Man was never 
made to die : it was never Grod's design that he should die j he 
was made instinct with all the yearnings, and arrayed with all 
the powers of endless life. And when man shrinks from death, 
there is nothing unchristian in it. Paul did not desire death for 
its own sake, when he said, " I desire to be unclothed/' or, "I 
desire to depart," but he was willing to meet the foe for the 
sake of the victory ; he was willing to pass through the swelling 
of a dark and stormy sea because of the land of beauty and of 
blessedness that stretched beyond it. Nature shrinks from death ; 
but Christian nature, even in its agonies, can exclaim, "0 death, 
where is thy sting ? grave, where is thy victory ? Thanks be 
unto G-od that giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ." But 
when the Christian dies, it is not the Christian himself, but 
death that dies. When the Christian dies, he does not cease 
to be. When the loved, the near, and the dear have ceased 
to communicate with us — when the eye that looked upon us, and 
the lips that breathed her name, are closed, he has not ceased to 
be. He has only begun to be as he never was before. Death to 
the Christian is not even a momentary suspension of the conti- 
nuity of life : it is only the removal of the restrictions and the 
trammels of this life : it is the Levite laying aside the coarse gar- 
ment in which he ministered as a Levite in the outer temple, and 
putting on the sacerdotal and coronation robes in which he shall 



208 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

minister as a priest and a king in the inner temple of God his 
Father. And in such a case — in the case of Daniel — if he had 
died when placed amid the ravenous wild beasts, death would have 
been hut the precursor of truly living ; the lions' den would have 
become, in this case, only the vestibule of glory ; the flame that 
consumes the martyr's flesh is the chariot that wafts his soul to 
immortality and joy \ and the evening twilight of this world does 
not close upon the eye of that happy spirit till the morning twi- 
light of yon world bursts upon it with a brightness of eternal day. 
Thus we like not to leave the old house, every nook and cranny 
of which is dear to us ; but if we could only fix our hearts more 
upon the house not made with hands — if we could think less of 
all that is seen, and feel more of the magnificence and glory of 
the unseen that awaits us, we should rather long to depart, than 
desire to remain, that we might be with Christ, which is far better. 
The language here addressed by Darius to Daniel, is language 
which proves, I think, when taken in connection with other ex- 
pressions of the same monarch, that King Darius was an altered 
man — that something transpired in the life, and was heard in 
the language of Daniel, which led the sovereign to think, and, 
by the blessing of God, to think savingly. He sought to save 
Daniel, and he could not. We must not imagine that kings, be- 
cause they may be called absolute, are really practically so. Nay, 
it is the monarch of all who is often the greatest servant of all j 
and he who occupies the loftiest position, and seems to us to have 
only to speak and it shall be done, is often the man who is least 
able to do what he pleases to those that are beneath him. Darius 
was unable to reverse his sentence j but he said to Daniel, and 
said it plainly not in scorn, not in bitterness, but as a prophecy — 
partly a prophecy, partly a prayer — "The God whom thou servest 
continually, he will deliver thee." It is plain, from this, that 
the king had been brought to the knowledge of the true God. 
And, connected with the last verse of this chapter, which con- 
tains so remarkable a decree, it is a plain proof that he had 
learned and felt the truth which he here speaks not in scorn, but 
in solemn and painful earnestness. And what must have been 
the cause, next to the grace of God, of the conversion of the 
monarch 1 I have no doubt it was the meekness, the magnani- 



DANIEL IN THE DEN OF LIONS. 209 

mity, the gentleness, the patience, the submission of Daniel, a 
prisoner chained and sentenced to a terrible death, connected and 
associated with the lessons that Daniel spoke, and the prayers 
that Daniel offered, and the religion of which Daniel was the con- 
sistent exponent and the living illustration. And what does this 
teach us, my dear friends ? — That the means of conversion to 
others are not only the truths that Christians speak, but the lives 
that Christians lead, and the death that Christians die. Sick- 
beds have exceeded pulpits in persuasive eloquence, and dying- 
martyrs have made conversions that living ministers have never 
been honoured with. No Christian lives to himself, no Christian 
dies to himself; and wherever a Christian is, there is an element 
of power wielded for God. In the silent prison, and in the In- 
quisitor's dungeon, and in the Papal fires, the sufferers have all 
emitted testimony for God, and proved to history and to mankind 
that G-od does not cease to reign when his children are persecuted, 
and that the truth does not die with her martyrs ; rather that 
Christianity has received a greater impulse, and has made greater 
progress by the opposition of her foes, than by the eloquence and 
advocacy of her friends. 

But the words are not only expressive of the pity of the man, 
but they are, if I may use the expression, an unconscious pro- 
phecy. God has often made use of men who were not Christians, 
as well as of those who were, to predict truths of which they 
themselves knew not the glory. Thus we read in the Gospel of 
John, that Caiaphas, being high-priest that year, " gave counsel 
to the Jews, that it was expedient that some one should die for 
the people." Thus God made Caiaphas the trumpet of a glorious 
prophecy, just as before he made Cyrus the battle-axe by which 
he chastised the enemies of his people. God thus teaches man, 
(for man needs to know what a very little creature he is in His 
sight,) and he teaches Christians, what Christians more and more 
feel, that all things are under the power and control of Him who 
holds the reins and sways the sceptre of the universe. 

We read that Daniel was dropped into the lions' den, as a peb- 
ble is dropped into the silent sea, apparently to be forgotten for 
ever, and the world seemed to have its way, and the persecutors 
of the prophet to have had their will. But man's thoughts are 

18* 



210 PKOPHETIC STUDIES. 

not God's thougbts ; nor God's ways man's ways. The" persecu- 
tors of Daniel, when they placed him in that den, and put that 
heavy stone over him, and sealed it clown, believed that no voice 
could rise from its depths to excite sympathy, and that no cry 
could come from the martyred prophet to arouse the popular in- 
dignation; and still more, that no trace of the foul murder they had 
endeavoured to perpetrate, could remain to witness against them. 

They returned to their homes ; and never did they drink so 
freely, or sing so merrily, as when they recollected how successful 
they had been in putting out of their way a man who would not 
connive at dishonesty : that feared God, and rather than compro- 
mise his allegiance to his God, was willing to live poor, and to 
die a martyr. They rejoiced, and congratulated each other that 
the witness who prophesied against them was at last disposed of. 

As for the poor king, he went home, still giving evidence that 
his heart had undergone a change, filled with remorse for having 
signed the fatal decree, and not knowing how to retrieve or to re- 
trace his steps. When conscience echoes in the depths of the 
heart, it will cause the loins of the lord of Christendom to trem- 
ble. It is not nerve that is bravest, it is a conscience full of the 
peace of God which passeth understanding. But when conscience 
is vexed with a sense of sin, there can be no heroism, there can 
be no presence of mind, there can be no peace. All the opiates 
that physicians can prescribe will not give sleep unless God is 
pleased by a conscience cleansed in the blood of Jesus to give his 
beloved sleep. And when there is sin in the conscience, what 
awful, what mysterious power it has ! It will pierce the armed 
battalion, it will enter within the thickest walls of the palace, it 
will invade the secret chambers of royalty, it will defy all opiates, 
it will hush all music; and though all sounds should be suppress- 
ed outside, and all books be shut, and all testimonies be silenced, 
that conscience grieved, wronged, offended, acting as the echo and 
the oracle of God, will reason, even in the royal bosom, of " right- 
eousness and temperance and judgment to come," and make the 
possessor of it tremble, and his knees smite against each other, 
and be ill at ease. 

Early next morning the sleepless monarch rushes with the first 
rays of the rising sun to the den, and, as he then thought, the 



DANIEL IN THE DEN OF LIONS. 211 

grave of the murdered prophet j and half hoping, half despairing, 
rather as the expression of his deep commiseration than as the 
expression of any hope, he looked into the den and asked if the 
prophet was alive ; and Daniel, with that calmness which a con- 
science at peace can alone impart, with that supreme self-posses- 
sion which Christian principle can alone create, with that loyalty 
to his king which Christians ever have expressed, called out, 
"God save the king." And his second accents are giving glory 
to Him who had sent his angel to shut the lions' mouths and save 
him from so terrible and cruel a death. God is everywhere. You 
cannot banish a saint from God. You may banish him from his 
home, or from his country ; you may bury him in the cave, you 
may seal him in the lions' den; you may cast him into the 
depths of the sullen and unsounded sea ; but you cannot banish 
him from his God. On the top of ancient Ararat, when it was 
surrounded by its first rainbow coronal, God saw, pitied, and 
blessed his people. In the depths of the lions' den, and among 
the beasts ravenous with hunger, God was present, and heard his 
praying prophet. In the silent catacombs of Rome; amid the 
sands of the untrodden desert, or on the waves of the great and 
silent sea ; on the heights, wherever man has soared ; in the 
depths, wherever man has descended ; there, if there be a Chris- 
tian heart, will be found a present help, a Christian's God. How 
blessed is this thought ! the poor Roman Catholic cannot have 
his God unless he has his consecrated altar ; he cannot obtain 
absolution unless he has access to his priest ; he cannot have his 
sacrifice for forgiveness unless he has his priest, altar, and wafer. 
But the Christian — let him be the miner in the depths of the 
dark mines of Northumberland, has there his priest, his altar, 
and his sacrifice, even Jesus ; or let him be placed on the loftiest 
pinnacle to which Alpine herdsman can climb, there he finds a 
temple, a sacrifice, and an altar, even Jesus. If he ascend into 
heaven, he is there ; if he descend into the grave, he is there ; 
if he take the wings of the morning and godown into the depths 
of the sea, even there is his Lord and Saviour too. God's eye 
can pierce all darkness ; God's heart can pity his captive any- 
where, and God's hand can help him in spite of all obstacles. So 
Daniel felt, and so thousands of God's saints have felt it too. 

/ 



212 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

When the king found the captive alive, he commanded the 
den to be opened, and Daniel to be taken out; and, as Eastern 
monarchs often did in the exercise of a rash and passionate 
revenge, sinful, improper, and unworthy of him as a Christian, 
and injurious to him as a monarch, ordered men who certainly 
deserved it, but to whom showing mercy would have been a 
brighter jewel in the regal crown, — he commanded those men, 
their wives, and their children, to be cast into the lion's dec as a 
punishment for their cruelty and perfidy. Do not say, "This 
book is not from God," because it states this. It does not de- 
scribe the cruel conduct of Darius as right; it simply narrates 
the fact. It does not say the king did what was merciful and 
good • it simply states his deeds. These men were most guilty : 
whether their punishment exceeded their crime, it is not for me 
to pronounce — but this certainly they found, that he which made 
a pit and digged it, is fallen into the snare which he laid. Jose- 
phus, the Jewish historian, recording this fact, mentions the fol- 
lowing circumstance : — he says, that when Daniel thus wonderfully 
escaped the lions' den, the princes said that the lions had been 
previously surfeited with food, and on that account it was that 
they refused to touch Daniel. The king, out of abhorrence to 
their wickedness, ordered that a great deal of flesh should be 
thrown to the lions, and when the beasts had filled themselves 
with the flesh, he gave further orders that Daniel's enemies 
should be cast into the den, when they were all destroyed. 

This is the statement of an uninspired historian, and of course 
must be taken for what it is worth; but these Persian princes 
were plainly very much like some of our modern philosophers, 
who account for every phenomenon without admitting the element 
of God. If pestilence comes, it was the want of ozone, or vol- 
canic action that occasioned it. If pestilence is removed, it was 
the cold weather that removed it. The thermometer becomes 
their God, and weather-phenomena the other idols they worship. 
So these princes said, It was not God that saved Daniel : no 
doubt the lions had been well fed, and therefore they spared 
Daniel. The experiment, according to Josephus, was tried; and the 
result proved that God delivered Daniel, while the lions devoured 
his enemies; not because their flesh was sweeter to their taste. 



DANIEL IN THE DEN OF LIONS, 213 

We see, in his preserving Daniel from the lions, the evidence 
of a great fact, — namely, God's power over the beasts of the 
earth: he is able to stay their fierce propensities, when, and 
where, and under what circumstances he pleases. When Adam 
was created, there is no doubt that the beasts were at peace with 
him, and at peace with one another. There is no evidence that 
what are now called carnivorous animals ate flesh before Adam 
fell. I know well the difficulties of the case. I know there are 
traces of death among the great saurian tribes long before Adam 
was created; as geologists have clearly shown. I am perfectly 
satisfied that this orb is probably hundreds of thousands of years 
old ; Genesis records merely the present collocation of its surface, 
the creation of man, and all that relates to man : and there is no 
doubt that fossil remains have been excavated from the bowels of 
the earth, among which, one animal has been discovered petrified 
in the jaws of another; showing that, prior to the creation of 
man, this earth has existed in a chaotic or inferior state, in which 
there was death and mutual destruction among the lower animals ; 
and some of the best and ablest of our scientific men have doubted 
whether animals were originally made to live for ever, arguing, 
that if animals had never died, the eajrth, according to our pre- 
sent notions, would have been over-filled and over-stocked with 
them : and that death among the lower animals is no part of the 
curse pronounced upon man, — "In the day that thou eatest there- 
of, thou shalt surely die." I know there are great difficulties in 
the subject: at some future time I hope to look more minutely at 
them ; but of this I am quite persuaded, that when man was created, 
and the animals were brought to him to receive their names, they 
were at peace with him, and at peace with one another. And I am 
as persuaded of this, that what are now called the carnivorous ani- 
mals did not then feed on flesh. I know the medical men and phy- 
siologists in this congregation will smile at what they will consider 
my ignorance, because we know that the structure and physical 
economy of the animal that feeds on grass is quite different from 
that of the animal that feeds on flesh. Their respective viscera 
differ greatly. No doubt of it. I do not say that there is no 
difficulty in the point; but I am stating this fact, on the authority 
of God, that when God created man, he said, " Behold, I have 



214 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

given thee every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all 
the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding 
seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the 
earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that 
creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given 
every herb for meat: and it was so." Man, in innocence, did 
not eat animal flesh. We have no evidence that the permission 
was given him till after the flood; and what do we, therefore, 
gather from this fact? That animals were not slain in order to 
supply man's wants till the deluge. It is plain, too, from the 
passage I have read, that the stronger carnivorous animals did 
not originally feed upon the flesh of the weaker animals; and the 
presumptive inference, therefore, is, that all animals, the lion arid 
the lamb, the wolf and the sheep, were at perfect peace with 
each other; and that when they were so, they presented only a 
dim foreshadow of that better Paradise, when, as I believe, it will 
literally come to pass, that "the lion shall eat straw like the ox, 
and a little child shall lead theni." I know some will ask, How 
can you understand that prediction literally ? You may recollect 
what I told you in a previous lecture, — the prophecy of Zechariah 
was, that Christ shall come, "riding upon an ass, and on a colt, 
the foal of an ass." Our spiritual and figurative interpreters 
would say this does not mean that the Messiah will come literally 
seated upon an ass, but that he will come in very great humility. 
But when you turn to history, you find the minutest particular 
fulfilled, — that Jesus so came, so riding upon an ass, and on a 
colt, the foal of an ass. And in the same manner I understand 
those glowing descriptions of the millennial day, when all things 
shall be renewed, when the High-Priest who is now in the holy 
place shall come forth, and pronounce, as creation's High-Priest, 
creation's grand benediction, — a benediction which shall ascend 
to the heights, and descend to the depths, of all created things; 
— I believe, upon the testimony and authority of God, that all 
creatures shall again recognise man as their lord; and that lion 
and tiger, and fish of the sea and bird of the air, shall all do him . 
homage as creation's king, God's vicar upon earth. God gave 
token of this, when he showed, as I explained to you in discours- 
ing on the miracles of our Lord, that though man has lost the 



DANIEL IN THE DEN OF LIONS. 215 

reins, God still holds them. And hence there are scattered 
throughout the Bible instances of a similar kind, — where the 
ravens bring food to the prophet; where the dumb ass, at God's 
bidding, preached a sermon to the disobedient prophet; and 
where the fierce lions, as in the example before us, revered the 
flesh of the sainted man, and dared not touch him. God has but 
to speak, and the curse shall be withdrawn; sin shall be obliterated, 
and all things become beautiful, harmonious, and happy, and the 
world blossom into paradise. 

Looking at Daniel's miraculous escape, let us never cease to 
have confidence, under all circumstances, in God. Do not look 
at things, but look at the Lord of things. Do not calculate what 
shall be by what you see, but calculate "how safe is that mother's 
child, " to use the language of Hooker, " whose trust is in the 
Rock of ages, the Lord Jesus Christ." If God be your foe, or 
rather, if you be his, all creation shall bristle with enmity, and 
hostility to you; but if you be God's friend, and God your friend, 
the winds shall make music to you, the waves shall joyfully bear 
you, as their ornament, not their load, and all things shall work 
together for good to them that love God, and are the called ac- 
cording to his purpose. 

The monarch, thus impressed with the truth of Daniel's faith, 
and struck with the interposition of Daniel's God, issues a decree, 
— a decree which certainly shows his profound and solemn con- 
viction, — enacting that the God of Daniel should be worshipped 
and adored, and accepted throughout the whole earth. There 
was much in this decree that did credit to the monarch; there 
was much in it that displayed his thorough ignorance. The king 
issued a decree, commanding men to lay aside the creeds that 
they loved, however wrong they were, and to adopt a creed that 
was new and strange to them, however good. The king forgot 
that the despotic monarch of the East might lay his hand upon 
the property, or his sword upon the life of his subjects; but that 
there is a holy place of humanity, the conscience, into which 
even a royal hand is not permitted to enter. And when kings 
suppose that they can dictate creeds to their subj ects, they assume 
a power that does not belong to them, and a power it becomes 
lawful instantly to resist. Intellectual convictions and conscien- 



216 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

tious impressions are created by truth, and they never can be 
coerced by force. I will tell you what I think the king should 
have done: instead of trying to persecute his subjects into the 
true religion, it would have been better if he had called every 
Christian throughout the land of Chaldea, all the friends and fel- 
low-sufferers of Daniel, and sent them out, two and two, through- 
out all Chaldea, telling them to go and proclaim to all people, to 
all his subjects, of all tongues, and of all tribes, that Jehovah is 
the living God; that his dominion, to use his own words, is an 
everlasting dominion, and that Daniel's creed is the creed of 
truth. But his decree that men should become Christians, might 
create uniformity in subscription to a creed, but it could not 
produce unity of conviction, or heartfelt adoption of the truth 
that he thus forced upon his unwilling subjects. Never, my 
dear friends, let us believe that truth can be aided by force, or 
that a lie can be burned out by the fire. If the sword is to be 
unsheathed, let it be unsheathed not by the friends, but by the 
foes of the gospel of Jesus. The weapons of our warfare are 
mighty; and mighty just because they are not carnal. But 
while the king's decree was wrong, inasmuch as he tried to force 
conviction where truth alone could create it, yet the truths which 
he embodied in his decree were grand and beautiful. He said, God 
is the living God. Jupiter is a dead god. Bel is a dead god. Mars 
is a dead god. But Jehovah is "the living God." And he spoke 
truly when he said, "and his kingdom shall not be destroyed." 
Why, what is the history of the world ? Dynasties have changed, 
and thrones have tottered, and crowns have been tossed as baubles, 
and sceptres have been snapped as infants' toys; vicissitude, and 
change, and decay have seized upon and made sport of the brightest 
and the noblest of created things ; but there is one kingdom that 
emerges more beautiful from wrecks — the kingdom of the Lord 
Jesus Christ. Christianity still holds on her upward and her on- 
ward career. Persecution has tried to destroy her power, or crush 
her influence ; but all history attests what the Bible confirms, that no 
power of man can permanently build up a lie, and that no hatred of 
man can permanently injure the truth of God. "He," says the 
monarch in his decree, "maketh signs and wonders;" and he does 
so still. The flower that germinates, — the bud that bursts from 



DANIEL IN THE DEN OF LIONS. 217 

the stem, — the spring of the year, which if it came only once in 
a hundred years, would be the wonder and the admiration of the 
world, — these are all evidences just as decisive of the signs and 
wonders of his presence and his power, as the miracles he wrought 
in Palestine. There is just as much of God's signs and wonders, 
and mighty power, in making my living heart continue to beat, 
as there was in making Lazarus' s dead heart begin to beat again. 
"What philosophers call phenomena, the Bible calls the signs, and 
wonders, and the tokens of the living God. He guides still by 
his hand the orbs that Newton discovered: he mingled those 
beauteous colours that Newton was the first to untwine. He 
buried the saurian tribes before man was created. He knows all 
the discoveries that science will make, all the creeds that theorists 
will form, and all the projects that diplomatists will propose. He 
makes, by his almighty power, the wrath of man to praise him. 
He causes obstructions to aid the progress of the gospel, and all 
things to work together for good to them that love him, and are 
the called according to his purpose. 

Thus, then, we have seen Daniel in the den, Daniel delivered, 
and the monarch praising, and acknowledging, and thanking God. 

In concluding my remarks, and especially in pleading the 
claims of my schools, which I do in this lecture, let me remind 
you that all the excellence and the Christian heroism that Daniel 
exhibited, was, as we are told at the beginning of the book, 
mainly the result of early religious education. Daniel as a 
youth was educated in the gospel, and therefore Daniel as a man 
lived according to the gospel. And how did he show his Chris- 
tian principle ? Just as I wish, and as you would wish, your 
babes to show it. When he was told that if he prayed he would 
be put to death, that if he confessed his religion he would bring 
down upon himself the shame and the disapprobation of others, 
he cared not what man might say ; he only thought of what God 
would think. And therefore, my dear friends, we are to teach 
our children, when they are entering upon any duties in the 
world, not to submit to public opinion, but only to defer it ; not 
to fear the censure of the sinful, or the thoughtless, but to do 
right because it is right, and to cleave to duty just because it is 
duty. Let our children be taught to bow circumstances to duty, 

19 



218 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

never to bow duty to circumstances. We have nothing to do 
with circumstances but to conquer them : ours is duty, God's the 
issue. 

A second feature in Daniel was self-sacrifice, another result of 
his early education. He was ready to give up his honours, his 
profits, his life, but never, never to give up his confidence in God, 
his belief in the gospel of Jesus. Accustom your children to 
self-sacrifice. Accustom them to be ready to give up their 
money, their plans, their play, when the requirement of a higher 
duty demands that they should do so. Accustom them to give 
to the claims of humanity, to the cause of God. A boy parting 
his only apple with his school-fellow, looks to many as a mere 
childish act; it is a sublime and significant fact. Daniel had 
parted his apple with his school-fellow before he grew up to part 
with his life, if needs were, at the bidding of his Father and his 
God. 

Teach your children, like Daniel, to shrink from every thing 
like recrimination. When Daniel was accused, how meekly he 
bore it ! when unjustly sentenced, how gently he took the sen- 
tence ! not one word of acrimony or retaliation fell from his lips. 
But what do many of you sometimes teach your children ? You 
tell your boy, when he is struck by another boy, " Show a little 
spirit j retaliate/ 7 Nay, I have seen the nurse in the nursery 
doing a most mischievous thing, by teaching the little child that 
had accidentally struck its head against a table or a chair, to beat 
and scold the table or the chair by which the accident happened, 
thus instilling into its mind the principle of revenge even with 
its mother's milk. It is a lesson too soon and too readily learned. 
How much better to teach your child the lesson we read in our 
Saviour's sermon on the mount : " Love your enemies, bless them 
that curse you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and 
persecute you !" Daniel had better teachers and better schooling, 
and therefore retaliation — " an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth' ; 
— was no dogma in Daniel's creed. 

Daniel was plainly a child trained to prayer. Teach youv 
children not only the words, the sentiment of prayer, but teach 
the habit of prayer. Teach them by a form, but tell them also 
to lift that little beating heart when the tongue must be dumb 



DANIEL IN THE DEN OF LIONS. 219 

and give no expression to its feelings, and to think of our Fa- 
ther, who so loved us and gave Christ to die for us. Teach them 
to pray, and to seek a new heart from the Spirit of God, who 
alone can give that new heart. Pray that you may see them 
made Christians first ; they will be Churchmen or Dissenters soon 
enough. See that they be Christians ; leave all the rest. Teach 
them, as Daniel had been taught, Christian courtesy. But draw 
courtesy for your children not from Chesterfield, but from the 
apostle Paul. There is a great deal in refinement. I like to see 
children good, but I like to see them self-sacrificing. What is 
the highest Christianity ? Giving way to your neighbour in all 
that can please him, without any sacrifice of principle or duty on 
your part. What is the highest mark of courtesy, the great evi- 
dence of a true gentleman ? It is yielding to the convenience, 
the comfort, and happiness of another. Teach your children so 
to act. Teach them at your own table: don't say, "It is only 
home," it is only your own dining or drawing-room, and there- 
fore the child may do as it likes. Teach them to do at home as 
you wish them to do abroad, and then they will do abroad with- 
out restraint that to which they are accustomed, on the principle 
on which that issue is sustained. 

Thus Daniel showed in his grown-up life the graces which he 
learned in his earlier years. Those great reforms which are to 
revolutionize the world must begin in the nursery. From the 
first moment that the child leaves its cradle, to the last moment 
that he spends at the university, there must be Christian instruc- 
tion bestowed upon him. Education of the head without educa- 
tion of the heart is worse than no education at all — it is not 
worthy of the name of education. 



220 



LECTURE XVI. 



THE PAPACY. 

"I came near unto one of them that stood by, and asked him the truth of all 
this. So he told me, and made me know the interpretation of the things. These 
great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth. 
But the saints of the Most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the king- 
dom for ever, even for ever and ever. Then I would know the truth of the 
fourth beast, which was diverse from all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose 
teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass ; which devoured, brake in pieces, 
and stamped the residue with his feet ; and of the ten horns that were in his 
head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that 
horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was 
more stout than his fellows. I beheld, and the same horn made war with 
the saints, and prevailed against them ; until the Ancient of days came, and 
judgment was given to the saints of the Most High ; and the time came that 
the saints possessed the kingdom. Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the 
fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall 
devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces. And 
the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise : and another 
shall arise after them ; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall sub- 
due three kings. And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and 
shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and 
laws : and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the di- 
viding of time. But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his do- 
minion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end. And the kingdom and 
dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be 
given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an ever- 
lasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him. Hitherto is the 
end of the matter. As for me, Daniel, my cogitations much troubled me, and 
my countenance changed in me : but I kept the matter in my heart." — Darnel 
vii. 16-28. 

The four chapters on which I have discoursed on successive 
Sunday evenings, have been evidences of the power of real religion, 
when the upholder and advocate of that religion was persecuted 
and oppressed. The sixth chapter, on the last verse of which I 



THE PAPACY. 221 

addressed you last Sunday evening, closed the personal biography, 
if I may so call it, of the prophet Daniel, presenting to us a 
specimen of Christianity in ancient times, as beautiful as it was 
rare, and showing us that if Daniel, amid such circumstances — a 
captive, persecuted, oppressed, misrepresented, cast to the wild 
beasts, denounced to his king — exhibited under such circum- 
stances, and amid the darkness of an age on which the sun of 
righteousness had not fully risen, such constancy, such attachment 
to his principles, such hatred of every thing like compromise or 
concession of the truth, such devotedness to God, such a martyr's 
spirit amid more than a martyr's sufferings, " How shall we es- 
cape if," amid intenser light and with greater privileges, u we 
neglect so great a salvation ?" 

Before proceeding to expound the passage I have selected, I 
should like to read to you a sketch which has been drawn of the 
prophet Daniel by an ancient writer, which I hold in my hand. 

" It was this love of God which made his greatly beloved Da- 
niel prosperous in adversity, that gave him freedom in captivity, 
friendship among enemies, safety among infidels, victory over his 
conquerors, and all the privileges of a native in strange countries : 
it was the love of God that gave his greatly beloved ' knowledge 
and skill in all learning and dreams/ It was this love of God 
that delivered him in danger — from the conspiracy and malice of 
the Median princes ; from the fury of the lions ; that sent one 
angel in the den to stop their mouths, and another angel at an- 
other time to bring a prophet on purpose to feed him ; that sig- 
nally avenged him of his enemies, and did by a miracle vindicate 
his integrity. It was the love of God that sent the angel Gabriel 
to visit him — to be his interpreter — to strengthen, to comfort, 
to encourage him; to reveal secrets to him, and to assure him 
that his prayers were heard. It was the love of God which gave 
him the spirit of prophecy — that excellent spirit, that spirit of 
the holy gods, (as the Babylonians styled it,) by which he foretold 
the rise and period of the four monarchies, the return of the cap- 
tivity, and wrote long beforehand the history of future ages. But 
beyond all this, it was the love of God that presented him with a 
clearer landscape of the gospel than any other prophet ever had ; 
he was the beloved prophet under the old dispensation, as John 

19* 



222 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

was the beloved disciple under the new, and both being animated 
by the same divine love, there was a wonderful harmony between 
them ) both of them had miraculous preservations — one from the 
lions, the other from the burning caldron ; both engaged young 
in the service of God, and consecrated their lives by an early 
piety ; and both lived to a great and equal age — to about an 
hundred years : both had the like intimacy with God — the like 
admittance into the most adorable mysteries — and the like abun- 
dance of heavenly visions : both had the like lofty nights and ec- 
static revelations." 

Such is the sketch of the prophet given by an ancient writer, 
as comprehensive as it is beautiful and true. I spoke last Lord's- 
day evening of the safety of Daniel when cast among the furious 
wild beasts, because of his attachment to his God and his devotecl- 
ness to his religion. I cannot but read here also a beautiful pas- 
sage from the justly-called judicious Hooker, which is founded 
upon this incident — Daniel's preservation in the den of lions. 

" It was not the meaning of our Lord and Saviour, in saying, 
1 Father, keep them in thy name/ that we should be careless to 
keep ourselves. To our own safety our own sedulity is required ; 
and then, blessed for ever be that mother's child, whose faith 
hath made him the child of Go'd. The earth may shake, the pil- 
lars of the world may tremble under us, the countenance of the 
heaven may be appalled, the sun may lose his light, the moon her 
beauty, the stars their glory; but concerning the man that trusteth 
in God, if the fire once proclaimed itself unable to singe a hair 
of his head — if lions, beasts ravenous by nature and keen with 
hunger, being set to devour, have, as it were, religiously adored 
the flesh of the faithful man — what is there in the world that will 
change his heart, overthrow his faith, alter his affection toward 
God, or the affection of God to him ? If I be of this note, who 
shall make a separation between me and my God ? ' Shall tribu- 
lation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or 
peril, or sword V I am persuaded that neither tribulation, nor 
anguish, nor persecution, nor famine, nor nakedness, nor peril, 
nor sword, nor death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor 
depth, nor any other creature/ shall ever prevail so far over me. 



THE PAPACY. 223 

I know in wliom I have believed ; I am not ignorant whose pre- 
cious blood hath been shed for me ; I have a Shepherd full of 
kindness, full of care, and full of power; unto him I commit my- 
self : his own finger hath engraven this sentence on the tables of 
my heart : l Satan hath desired to winnow thee as wheat, but I 
have prayed that thy faith fail not ;' therefore the assurance of 
my hope I will labour to keep as a jewel unto the end ; and by 
labour, through the gracious mediation of his prayer, I shall keep 
it." 

Such is first a sketch of the life — such is a grand exhibition 
of the safety enjoyed by Daniel, and not only by Daniel, but all 
who have like faith, like love, and a like God to serve, to glorify, 
and to honour. 

I now enter upon that passage which is in some degree a repe- 
tition of what has been sketched before. You recollect that a 
great image appeared to Nebuchadnezzar, having a head of gold, 
the breast and arms of silver, the belly and the thighs of brass, 
and the feet of iron, and these feet divided into ten toes, partly 
clay and partly iron, which, apparently cohering together by the 
great law of attraction, were never made permanently to do so. 
And I explained, in expounding that passage, that the vision re- 
lated by the prophet was a description of the doom of Babylon ; 
the second, the Medo-Persian empire; the third, the Macedonian, 
under Alexander — the brass-coated Greeks ; the fourth, the Ro- 
man, or the iron empire, divided ultimately, at the breaking up of 
the empire, into ten kingdoms. These ten kingdoms preserved in 
every century more or less distinctness, and although Charlemagne 
made the effort in one century, and Napoleon in a subsequent cen- 
tury, to extinguish the ten kingdoms, and to erect the fifth empire 
composed of all the empires of the world, God's word was found 
to be stronger than the sword of Charlemagne, or the iron crown 
of Napoleon, and the ten kingdoms still remain, and God's pre- 
diction still stands true. You have now the very same historical 
facts — and this will prevent the necessity of again dwelling upon 
them — sketched in this chapter, under the symbol of beasts. The 
first was revealed to a heathen king ; the second is disclosed to a 
holy prophet ; and while it is perfectly true that God sometimes 
uses his enemies to be the exponents of his truth, it is generally 



224 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

true that " holy men of old spake as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost." 

But the very repetition of this passage shows that there must 
be importance in it. Surely God does not reiterate trifles. I ask 
you, Do those men treat the Scripture with that reverence which 
is its due, or God with truly responsive gratitude, who tell us 
that we ought to pass over such passages as these, as if our duty 
were not to pray, and labour to be able to explain, and, if possible, 
to understand whatever God has written for our learning ? And 
yet I have heard ministers of the gospel speak as if it were to 
their credit, that they were so dazzled by the glories of Palestine, 
that they could not spare one glance at what they think the 
humbler and the misty beauties of Patmos. It does seem to me 
that " all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is pro- 
fitable for doctrine, for correction, and for instruction in right- 
eousness :" and if God saw it to be for his glory to write it, surely 
the least response that we can give is, to make it our study to 
understand it. Of course it becomes us never so to dwell upon 
one part as to give a disproportionate attention to the rest. These 
historic and prophetic pictures are the few and the far between; 
and we are only to discourse upon them on Sabbaths that are few 
and far between. The great, saving, vital truths of the gospel 
are to be the woof and the warp of every sermon ; the sum, the 
substance, the core, the life, of every appeal. But when such 
passages as these — historical, it is true ; prophetic, it is also true 
— come before us, in the ordinary course of our ordinary reading, 
it becomes us to look at them, and pray for light to understand 
them, and to gather from the tree that God has planted leaves 
that shall be for healing, and fruit that shall be for food to the 
people. 

These four kingdoms, then, are now depicted under a new 
symbol. The first symbol was the image composed of different 
metals ; the second class of symbols are four wild beasts ; the 
first, a lion with wings ; a hieroglyph in one respect : because this 
composite animal alone could express what was the mind of God, 
and denote the strength and courage that combined with them the 
speed and progress of the Babylonian empire. The second sym- 
bol, or type, was the bear — the symbol of Persia, and expressive 



THE PAPACY. 225 

of its cruel and savage nature. The third was the leopard, — the 
Macedonian leopard, with four wings, to give a greater idea of 
the rapidity of its conquests ; and with four heads, into which 
the empire of Alexander was divided after his death, and the do- 
minion that was given to them. And then the last, an animal, 
not named, but described, — "dreadful and terrible, and strong 
exceedingly, stamping the residue with the feet of it, and diverse 
from all the other beasts," — plainly the Roman empire, repre- 
sented by the iron feet and toes of the great image. It had also 
ten horns. The horn is always used in Scripture to represent 
power : it denotes, in prophetic language, a dynasty, a political 
empire. This last wild beast, of terrific power and* strength, and 
irresistible victories, was to have upon his head, as the hieroglyph 
expresses it, " ten horns." These were the ten kingdoms, sym- 
bolized in the former image by the ten toes, into which the Ro- 
man empire was to be divided ; these ten kingdoms I have 
enumerated in their order, in the course of my remarks upon the 
jfreat image ; and I therefore forbear to repeat them now. These 
ten horns, or kingdoms, have existed in every age since the em- 
pire came into being, and are in existence at the present moment. 
Then there was to spring up in the midst of the ten horns, a 
"little horn," politically and physically small, but from its pre- 
tensions and its assumptions, terrible and influential. This little 
horn was to pull down three of the ten horns. Now, is there any 
one fact in history by which this is borne out, and which shows 
how truly this prediction has been fulfilled ? This I will look at 
by-and-by ; but, in the mean time, let me call upon you to notice 
that these four wild beasts arose from the ocean, or the great sea, 
convulsed and agitated by the four winds that swept it • teaching 
us that these governments were to arise from social chaos, or, if I 
may so express myself, that society, torn and convulsed to its 
centre by the antagonistic passions of those that compose it, should 
be driven to have recourse to rule, government, and authority, in 
order to preserve it from utter extinction ; to consolidate its 
powers, and maintain harmony within ; to defend itself from the 
aggressions of enemies without. But these governments that 
were to arise are here called "wild beasts;" denoting what, after 
all, has been the character of those great empires, and of every 



226 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

empire that has not the gospel of peace to perfect, to sanctify, 
and to cement it. What has been the history of nations in the 
past ? — they have raised themselves to ascendency by force or by 
fraud- and they have maintained that ascendency generally by 
force or by fraud also. War has been the pride and the glory 
of nations in the past. Coercion has been the language of the 
most illustrious emperors ; and the sword cast into the scale, as 
in the case of Camillus of old, has been the justice which nations 
have meted out, and kings and great kingdoms have called in. 
A wild beast is the true symbol of a nation, a dynasty, or a king- 
dom that knows not, and coheres not by, the cementing influence 
of the gospel of Jesus. And when we know that this is the 
character of nations, how fervently should we pray for the advent 
of that blessed period, when the spear shall be turned into the 
pruning-hook, and the sword shall be beaten into the plough- 
share j — when the kingdoms of this world shall become the king- 
doms of our God and of his Christ, and the only sceptre that shall 
sway the nations from sea to sea, shall be the sceptre of the 
Prince of peace, the righteousness, the love, the mercy, of the 
Son of God. 

I have noticed that this last wild beast, the fiercest, or the most 
powerful of all, had ten horns; or, as I explained to you, was 
divided into ten separate and independent dynasties. Of these I 
have already given you a list, as they exist at the present moment, 
with the slightest shade of differences, in the modern European 
nations. In the midst of all these, there was to arise a little horn ; 
plainly a political dynasty, like the rest, but with very great 
moral, personal, and distinctive peculiarities. This little horn 
was not Mohammed, or Bramah, or Confucius, because it was to 
appear in the midst of the other ten horns. It spread from the 
head of the wild beast, amid the ten horns, or kingdoms, which 
first arose ; and it was, like the other horns, a political dynasty ; 
but it differed from the rest in this respect, that it had eyes for 
seeing, and a mouth for speaking. We are, therefore, taught 
that this power should be a combination of the power of the seer 
and the speaker, the i-foxo-og, and the priest, and the politi- 
cal speaker. It should be "a horn," having political power; 
but should have eyes; the origin of the Greek word bzi<rxo-os } 



THE PAPACY. 227 

from which is derived the English word episcopacy, signifying 
" one that oversees;" " one that sees and looks over other per- 
sons;" and the name given to the prophets of old is "a seer;" 
u one that sees." The ecclesiastical character of this little horn 
is, therefore, plainly indicated by the peculiar feature that it was 
to have eyes for seeing, or superintending those that were beneath 
it. And not only was it to have eyes, but it was also to have a 
mouth, speaking great things ; a preacher of proud pretensions, 
or a doctor of despotic laws ; an enacter of canons, or rules for 
government and for regulation. 

Then you will notice another feature in it, that it was to uproot 
three out of the ten kingdoms. Now if I apply this little horn 
where I think it is indisputably applicable, to the Papal power 
that now reigns at Rome, I think you will find every feature of 
the prophecy met and embodied in the history of that power. 
The three kingdoms that were rooted up by this little horn were 
the three kingdoms of the Vandals, Ostrogoths, and the Lom- 
bards, who were, after a succession of troubles, rooted up by the 
Papacy and constituted into the States of the Church. Now here 
is a very remarkable coincidence. Can this accident, that there 
is here a description of a little horn, an ecclesiastico-political 
power, which was to root out three horns or kingdoms that pre- 
ceded it? And you find in the history of Europe, that the 
Papacy has destroyed, partly by force and partly by fraud, long 
ago, three of the estates of the ten into which Europe was divided; 
and the pope wears upon his head at this very moment, the tiara 
or three-crowned cap, to denote the three kingdoms or horns 
which he rooted up, and over which he now reigns. 

Then you will notice that this power was to have a mouth 
speaking great things — a mouth by which it claims to be the 
vicar of God, and to have the keys of heaven and hell. It 
assumes the language, and arrogates to itself the attributes of 
deity. A mouth which assumes what bishop never assumed be- 
fore, and claims an intimacy with the world of spirits such as 
God never vouchsafed to any creature upon earth. The pope 
professes to see into the realms of spirits; to read and to make 
known God's hidden, unsearchable, and inscrutable record; and 
pronounces, by declaring that he sees, what is the doom of the 



228 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

lost that are in wo, and the destiny of the saved that are in 
glory; and can, for payment, facilitate the escape of the sufferers 
in purgatory, and can canonize and constitute into saints, to be 
worshipped, those who are the inmates of the latter. 

But the better way to show how this prophecy is fulfilled, is to 
refer to some of the great things that this horn speaks. Do not 
say that it is of no importance to explain this. Whatever God 
has written, it is the duty of the minister to endeavour to ex- 
pound. Here is a prophecy that this episcopal ecclesiastico- 
political power was to have, in the first place, a mouth that should 
speak great things. Let me read to you very briefly what I my- 
self have collected, at considerable labour and pains, from among 
the "great things" which this mouth speaks. I might give you, 
not my description of the things, but the very things themselves, 
as I have taken them from the writings in which they are con- 
tained. The bull of Pope Sextus V. against the two sons of 
wrath, as he calls them, Henry of Navarre and the Prince de 
Conde, is one specimen amid many of the pretensions put forth 
by the Papal power. You say, perhaps, "these are obsolete." 
What was infallibly right in the sixteenth century, cannot be 
wrong in the nineteenth. These pretensions never have been 
diluted, still less repudiated. The pope claims jurisdiction over 
all the kings and governments of the earth; though, thanks be 
to Grod, I think his political sovereignty is gone substantially, 
never to be wielded again with any thing like success over the 
nations of the earth; though his spiritual power, in our own 
land especially, seems to be making progress to a degree unpre- 
cedented since the Reformation. 

In making these arrogant assumptions, "the mouth," as it is 
here called, proceeds upon the assumption that Peter was the 
chief of the apostles, and that the popes of Rome are the succes- 
sors of Peter. There is not the least evidence in the Bible or in 
history that such was the case. In the first place, when the 
apostles contended which should be the greatest in the kingdom 
of heaven, our Lord, instead of setting Peter before them and 
saying, "Here is your superior," took a little child, and set him 
in the midst of them, and said, "He that is greatest of all shall 
be servant of all." Was Peter constituted an ambassador? So 



THE PAPACY. 229 

was Paul. Did Peter receive the keys? So did Paul. And 
Peter, in his epistles, styles himself only an " elder:" "I who am 
also an elder .... unto you who are elders." Did Peter re- 
ceive the power of binding and of loosing? So did Paul. Do 
not we read that the apostles "sent Peter and John/' &c, and 
that St. Paul rebuked Peter to his face? And if we ask the 
present pontiff to trace his succession to Peter, we shall see that 
Honorius the Monothelite, and Liberius the Arian, had not the 
succession in doctrine; Alexander VI. and Gregory VII. had not 
the succession in holiness. The popes do not preach, as Peter 
did. The pope's shadow does not heal diseases, as Peter's did. 
And in all these respects, and in many others which might be 
mentioned, the succession seems to have failed, and the popes of 
Rome to have become the successors of Judas, not the successors 
of Peter, the fisherman of Galilee. There is left then only "a 
mouth speaking," not proving, "great things." 

But these "great words" are said to be spoken specially 
against the Most High. What are the assumptions of the popes? 
I will quote what I have copied literally from Baronius, the cele- 
brated Roman Catholic historian, in his annals; such epithets as 
these bestowed by such high authority on the Roman pontiff: 
"the sovereign of the Church;" the "head of the Church;" 
"our Lord;" the "high-priest and pastor;" the "chief doctor;" 
the "master;" the "father;" the "judge of all." (Baron. An. 
34.) "It is idolatry to disobey the pope's commands." (Greg. 
VII. ch. 4.) And that he speaks great words against the Most 
High, I show you from Bellarmine, the great cardinal and up- 
holder of the Church of Rome, who says: "Si autem papa erra- 
ret prsecipiendo vitia vel prohibendo virtutes, teneretur ecclesia 
credere vitia esse bona et virtutes malas, nisi vellet contra con- 
seientiam peccare." (Bel. de Rom. Pont. vol. i. p. 546. Prag. 
1721.) . "If the Pope should err by commanding vices or pro- 
hibiting virtues, the church would be bound to believe that vices 
were good and virtues bad, unless she wished to sin against con- 
science." I have quoted these words, not at second-hand, but 
from the works of the author, which I have been at the pains to 
consult. These indeed are "great words" against the Most High. 
But there is other and equally strong evidence: Jesus said, 

20 



230 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

" Drink ye all of this cup;" the pope says, "The laity shall not 
drink of it." God says, "Thou shalt not make to thyself any 
graven image, or the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, 
or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth : thou 
shalt not bow down to them nor worship them." In most 
of the Roman Catholic catechisms that I have seen, that com- 
mandment is either left out altogether, or "bow" is changed into 
"adore," though the meaning of the original is strictly "bow," 
because the attitude of the body was forbidden, lest there should 
be the feelings of the soul immediately following or accompany- 
ing it. And the pope permits images to be reared, crosses to be 
adored, and the bread upon the altar to be worshipped. God 
says, "Honour thy father and thy mother;" the pope substan- 
tially says, "If the father be a heretic, the son is bound to re- 
veal him." God says again, "Thou shalt not steal;" the Romish 
doctors say, that "small thefts are only venial sins." God says, 
"Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy;" the Romish cate- 
chism, as printed and published at Rome, says, "Remember the 
festivals to keep them holy:" "Recordati di sanctificare le festi." 
We have here then "the mouth speaking great things and words 
against the Most High." 

Sanctissimus Dominus noster, "our most holy Lord," is the 
appellation given to the pope by the Council of Trent. (Decre- 
tum super petitione concessionis calicis. Cone. Trid. sess. 22, cap. 
ii. p. 223. Paris, 1837.) "All power is given to thee in heaven 
and earth," are words addressed to Gregory VII. (Binius, vol. 
vii. p. 484.) It would be tedious to quote all the evidence af- 
forded by documents, monuments, official claims, and accepted 
titles, of the idolatrous and blasphemous pretensions of the popes 
of Rome. "The mouth speaking great things" is too character- 
istic, too graphic, to escape the application I have given. 

Another feature that identifies this little horn with the Papal 
power, is the prediction that "he will make war with the saints." 
The whole history of Europe is painfully conclusive evidence of 
this feature. It was a pope who raised the crusades against the 
Albigenses, and carried them on until the whole province was 
depopulated. It was a pope that instigated Alberic III. to make 
war against the Paulicians in the East, till, within a few years, 



THE PAPACY. 231 

one hundred thousand were put to death. Aquinas, the cele- 
brated casuist, said that "the goods of heretics were to be confis- 
cated, and their lives to be taken away/' Bellarrnine says, "It 
is not enough to put heretics in prison for the extinction of their 
tenets, which go forth from prison walls and taint the fold; there- 
fore it is best to send them to their own place/' When we look 
back to the persecutions to which the Albigenses, the Paulicians, 
and the Waldenses were subjected, and when we become ac- 
quainted with the sentiments and doctrines of Rome's most emi- 
nent and accredited upholders, we can have little doubt that the 
power which thus made war against the saints, is "the little 
horn," which grew up amid the ten; for all history in all its 
chapters, and the word of Grod in its most solemn sentences, de- 
clares that that power has been "drunk with the blood of the 
saints." It was the retrospect of such cruelties which made 
Milton exclaim — 

"Avenge, Lord, thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones 
Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold. 
Even they "who kept thy truth so pure of old, 
When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones, 
Forget not. In thy book record their groans 
Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold 
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that roll'd 
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans 
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they 
To heaven. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow 
O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway 
The triple tyrant, that from these may grow 
A hundred-fold, who, having learn'd the way, 
Early may fly the Babylonian wo." 

It is true the pope does not now persecute, unless we should 
quote Dr. Achilli as an instance of an attempt to do so; but you 
are not therefore to conclude that his principles have changed, 
for they are precisely the same. It is not because his taste has 
been improved, for the instance of Achilli shows that it has not; 
but it is because the freedom of the press, the spread of popular 
liberty, the mildness of the governments of Europe, and the pro- 
gress and triumph of enlightened education, have, by the bless- 
ing of God, brought it to pass that the pope's power is limited 
to his church provinces. And the system of Popery seems to 



232 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

me at this moment to totter, waiting for that tremendous crash 
which shall sink it like a millstone into the depths of the sea for 
ever and ever. The oath of every Romish bishop is persecuting : 
" Omnes hsereticos perseqnar et impugnabar;" Force and fraud 
are the two main pillars of the popedom. 

Thus then I have looked at these two points : first, the heathen 
kingdoms that were to emerge from the chaos in the convulsions 
of the earth ; next, the ten kingdoms into which the first was to 
be split under the symbol of horns; next, the little horn that 
sprang up amid the ten, and therefore in Europe; next, the 
three that were to be pulled down — the Yandals, the Ostrogoths, 
and the Lombards — by this little horn; next, the evidence of its 
fulfilment in the Papacy — a see, an episcopal power, with a 
mouth speaking great things and words against the Most High, 
and making war with the saints and the people of God. And 
then we have explained, in another portion of the chapter, the 
length of time during which this politico-ecclesiastical power was 
to make war with the saints. It is in ver. 25: "They shall be 
given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of 
a time." Every waiter upon prophecy is satisfied that a "time" 
signifies, in prophetic language, a year; "'times," two years; and 
"the dividing of a time," or "half a time," half a rjrophetic 
year. But as a prophetic day stands for a literal year, so a pro- 
phetic year consists of 365 prophetic days, or 365 literal years. 
A time, times, and half a time, make then, when added together, 
1260 days, called by St. John in the Apocalypse, 42 months. 
We are to understand, then, that the saints of God were to be 
given into the power of the ecclesiastico-political despotism for 
1260 years. If we begin to count this period from the time 
when Justinian issued his pandects, and constituted the pope not 
only the ecclesiastical pontiff of Christendom, but armed him 
also with power to punish heresy with death, then the 1260 years 
ended at the epoch of the French Revolution, in 1792; and cer- 
tainly, by the blow it then received, any thing like the power of 
persecution on the part of the Papacy has been destroyed. Its 
principles remain — its ability only is broken. If, however, you 
begin to count the 1260 years from the time when the pope first 
put forth his claim to be universal bishop, A. D. 256, this calcu- 



THE PAPACY. 233 

lation would bring you down to the year 1517, when the Ke- 
formation began, and the Papal power was broken. Taking either 
of these two epochs — and either of them may be the right one — 
from either 1517 or 1792, the power of the Papacy to persecute 
has practically and substantially ceased. And if this be the case, 
the fears of some Protestants that the pope will again get the 
upper hand in England, and that he will sway our sceptre, and 
occupy our throne, and direct our parliaments, are in my humble 
opinion, perfectly absurd. If there be truth in the propositions I 
have stated, then there is not the possibility of such an event, 
for God has said that the saints should be given into his hand 
for 1260 years. Those years, I think, have expired, at the ear- 
liest in 1517, at the latest in 1792; and therefore, whatever 
temporary success the Papal power may attain in England — 
whatever proselytes it may make from the Tractarian clergy — 
whatever adherents it may gather from the tainted laity — I do 
not believe that the papal power vail ever attain political ascend- 
ency in England. I do not think there is the remotest possi- 
bility of it. 

But I do not dwell longer upon this. I draw two or three 
practical lessons, which will perhaps be more useful. First, then, 
predictions of the increasing power of the Papacy are given, in 
order to be to us increasing; evidence of the truth of the word of 
God. I have shown you that a perpetual miracle would destroy 
itself. The present miracle is that the grass grows in spring and 
withers in autumn. If it were to be reversed, and grass were to 
grow in autumn and wither in spring, whatever God ordained 
would be found to be the natural thing. The present law is, that 
the dead are buried and do not rise ; but if it had been the ex- 
perience of eighteen centuries that the dead should rise twelve 
months after their burial, we should pronounce it to be no miracle, 
but the natural law or order of things. The miracles that we 
see around us are the springing of the grass, the blooming of the 
flowers — the productions of the earth. All these things are just 
as much results of the touch of God as the turning of the water 
into wine, the raising of the dead Lazarus, or the feeding of the 
five thousand with a few loaves and fishes ; only we are so ac- 
customed to these phenomena, that we call them, in our language, 

20* 



234 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

"the laws of nature," and frequently forget that they are the 
evidences of the presence of God. But prophecy is not liable to 
this objection : it is a miracle of accumulative power. The evi- 
dence becomes stronger every day of the origin and inspiration 
of the Bible : one brings a city like Nineveh, pale and ghastly 
from its grave ; another discovers some great phenomenon in dis- 
tant lands, or another brings from science some new and hidden 
fact that men have never detected before, or discovers some new 
medical power that bears a relation to the curse, and seems to be 
an instalment of the day when that curse shall be transformed 
into a blessing — we have all these growing and accumulating 
proofs of the authenticity and inspiration of the Bible, and that 
holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. 
And thus the longer the Bible continues to give, by the fulfilment 
of its prophecies, accumulating evidence of the inspiration of God, 
the clearer will be our convictions that the Bible is true. 

Another reason, perhaps, why the prophecies were given, is to 
show the perfect harmony between the Old Testament and the 
New. Read the records of Daniel which he wrote in Babylon ; 
read the Apocalypse of John recorded by him in Patmos, and you 
find that the facts, the historic facts that they preintimated, are 
substantially the same : and that Daniel and John were both 
taught from the same wisdom, inspired by the same God, and 
spake as they were moved by the same holy influence. 

Another reason why God has so largely depicted in Daniel, so 
minutely described in the Apocalypse, and so vividly sketched in 
the Epistle to the Thessalonians, the great Papal power that was 
to arise, was that " forewarned, we might be forearmed." And, 
if ever there was a day when it was needful to disclose a system 
whose spires sparkle in the rays of rising and of setting suns, 
but underneath which are dungeons so dark and dens so cruel, it 
is surely in a day when the rush and current of the religious 
movement of the age seems all to be rolling and hastening toward 
Babylon. I heard Mr. Newman, the most distinguished convert 
that Rome has recently made, arguing, and in eloquent and im- 
pressive terms, with those who are called Anglicans ; and he as- 
sumed the ground which the Church of Rome has so repeatedly 
marked out, maintaining the doctrine of a perpetually visible 



THE PAPACY. 285 

church, which might fall into incidental errors, but by no possi- 
bility into absolute apostasy; and I declare that if I believed that 
dogma, I should, after having heard his argument, feel it my duty 
to leave the Church of Scotland or the Church of England, and 
to join the Church of Rome. His reasoning, as addressed to 
Messrs. Maskell, and Bennet was irresistible. There is no ground 
that you can stand on but this — Evangelical religion, the Chris- 
tianity of the Bible, the religion and the cement of the saints of 
God, or, the Church of Rome — not a corrupt church, but the Ba- 
bylon of the Apocalypse, the great apostasy that is delineated 
here and in the Epistle to the Thessalonians. If the Church of 
Rome be only a corrupt, reformable church, the reformers ought 
to have remained in it and tried to make it better : but they felt 
it what Luther maintained it to be, that it was the Babylon of 
prophecy, and heard sounding in their ears the commission of their 
God,- " Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers 
of her plagues." I do not wonder that the Church of Rome 
practically prohibits the perusal, or at least the interpretation of 
the Bible. It contains her own picture so plainly, so vividly, so 
unmistakably sketched, that if she allowed the Bible to be read, 
he that runs would read that picture, and fasten the brand where 
the spirit of God has fastened it eighteen centuries ago — on her. 
Take care then, in these days, of any approach to that system. 
Your dogmas of apostolical personal succession — baptismal re- 
generation — a perpetually visible church — these are the postulates 
that Mr. Newman asks. Grant him these, and the pope will hold 
Saint Paul's and Westminster Abbey in a few very years. I repeat 
it again, my dear friends, the only ground on which we can stand, 
is this, that the Bible alone is the rule of faith — that justifica- 
tion by faith alone is the article of a standing church — that re- 
generation by the Spirit of God alone is the article of a living 
church. AVithout this justification by faith, there is a fallen 
church. Without this regeneration by the Spirit, there is a dead 
church. Concede these, and you may, without any great sacri- 
fice, and consistently enough, concede all points besides. Never 
forget, then, my dear friends, that the great safety of the people 
of God is cleaving to the Bible ; and that the great secret of the 
apostasy of Rome is, the elevating of human authority into the 



236 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

place of God. Here is just the whole spring and source of the 
mischief. Remember this, that neither the General Assembly 
of the Church of Scotland, nor the House of Commons of Great 
Britain, nor the Convocation, is any authority with me as to what 
I am to believe. Neither the Bishop of Exeter in the one, nor 
our own beloved and gracious queen in the other, constitute the 
rule of faith. It is not the Bible explained by the bishop, nor the 
Bible explained by the presbytery, but the Bible alone, that is 
the rule of faith of all true Christians. Once concede that you 
are to look at the Bible through the lens of the presbytery, or 
through the telescope of the bishop, and you give up your great 
and strongest citadel, and you are sure to fall into the hands of 
the enemy. Cleave, then, to that blessed book as your only rule 
of faith — the arsenal of the soldiers of Christ — the armoury of 
the saints of the Most High. The oracles of God are as fresh 
and beautiful as when first taken, like a leaf from the tree of life, 
and committed to the nations. The Bible is a lamp ever bright, 
a light ever sure. And be not satisfied with holding the Bible in 
your hand ; hold it also in your heart. We are strong, not by 
possession of the Bible as a book, but by the embodiment of the 
Bible as a living, plastic, regulating faith. It is God's truth 
within us, not God's truth ADitJiput us, that is the strength of 
Christians, the safety of the saints of God. Show, then, to the 
Church of Rome — show to the world at large, that we have a 
succession that never fails — the succession of the sons of God ; 
that we have a religion which is ever beautiful, and mighty to 
make us holy and to make us happy — a religion that is not meat, 
nor drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy 
Ghost. Seek to show your missionary spirit by diffusing this 
faith ; and leave not the sisters of charity, so active in our streets, 
or the long-robed priests of the Oratory, so busy in every place 
into which thej can gain admission, to eclipse or excel you in 
ministering to the wants of your fellow-men, and in spreading 
this blessed gospel among those who are ignorant of it. The 
great defence against Puseyism and Popery is — living religion. 
Be Christians, and Rome will feel it. Be orthodox in head, but 
cold and unsanctified in heart and inactive in life, and Rome will 
not only rejoice, but gain. Let us bless God that we know this 



THE PAPACY. 237 

— that however that dark system may spread for a little, its 
mightiest triumphs are the precursors of its greatest downfall. 
God's judgments on Rome have already begun — Babylon is now 
drinking of the cup of the indignation of God; and all her 
boasted triumphs are but the instalments; as it were, or fore- 
tokens of her speedy downfall. She is only gathering together 
all her forces, till the earth shall explode from beneath, and the 
heavens rain floods of fire from above, and great Babylon shall 
perish like a ship foundering at sea. We rejoice not at the suf- 
ferings of any : but yet we cannot but join with saints that are 
in heaven and angels that are round the throne, in giving glory 
to God that the great waster of the earth is about to be removed ) 
and that the Jews, his ancient heritage, have heard his voice and 
are soon to come back ; and that the fulness of the Gentiles has 
nearly arrived, and " the kingdoms of this world are soon to be- 
come the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ, and he shall 
reign for ever and ever." Amen. 



238 



CHAPTER XVII. 



THE COMING KINGDOM. 

" I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of clays did sit, 
whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure 
wool : his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire . . . 
And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, 
nations, and languages should serve him : his dominion is an everlasting do- 
minion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be 
destroyed . . . Until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to 
the saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the 
kingdom . . . But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his do- 
minion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end. And the kingdom and do- 
minion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be 
given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an ever- 
lasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him." — Daniel vii. 9, 
14, 22, 26, 27. 

The first fact that is here worthy of notice is the consump- 
tion, or the wasting away, of that power which is called the "lit- 
tle horn." I have identified this power with the Papacy, by, I 
think, irresistible evidence. There is here a clear intimation, 
that in the first instance it shall he gradually wasted or consumed 
till it is all but exhausted by the wasting influence of a power 
without it; and next, that after it has undergone a series of suc- 
cessive wastings or consumptions, it shall then be utterly and 
signally destroyed, and its body given to the devouring flame. 
In this description of Daniel, one cannot but notice the basis of 
the predictions of St. Paul respecting the man of sin, and so far 
the evidence of his acquaintance with the book of Daniel. In 
2 Thess. ii. we have a description of a power that should " sit in 
the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God:" that 
power which he calls "the mystery of iniquity," which was so 
soon to be developed, and of which he foretells the end. 



THE COMING KINGDOM. 289 

"Then shall that -wicked one he revealed, whom the Lord 
shall consume with the spirit of his mouth:" that is the first 
stage; and then utterly "destroy with the brightness of his 
coming." You have thus the yery events predicted by St. Paul, 
clearly indicated by Daniel long before. Both prophets drew 
from a common fountain. Daniel states that "the judgment 
shall sit," that they shall take away the dominion of the little 
horn, to consume it, and then to destroy it unto the end." St. 
Paul on this subject utters predictions which are completely the 
echo of the prophecy of Daniel; not that the one transcribed the 
predictions of the other, but that both were inspired by the same 
Spirit, foresaw the rise of the same dread and destructive super- 
stition, and predicted, as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, 
first its gradual decay — a decay that is now obvious in every 
land — and, lastly, its final and irretrievable destruction by the 
brightness of the Redeemer's coming. 

"We cannot but see, in the next place, that the utter destruc- 
tion of " the false prophet" is not prior but subsequent to the ap- 
pearance of the "Ancient of days," or the coming of the Lord 
Jesus Christ. We see the thrones set; we see the Ancient of 
clays arrayed in his garments, white as snow — thousands of at- 
tendant angels ministering before him; and " after this," says 
the prophet, " I beheld then because of the voice of the great 
words which the horn spake : I beheld even till the beast was 
slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the devouring flame/'' 
And so, in verse 26, where it is explained, "The judgment shall 
sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to 
destroy it unto the end." It therefore appears to me that, first, 
the Lord shall come, and next, the Papacy shall be finally de- 
stroyed. I do not believe that the Church of Rome will be 
swept away utterly, except by Christ's immediate personal reve- 
lation. All Scripture seems to me clearly to indicate this. Her 
consumption, in fact, is now going on; and soon, as soon as the 
Lord comes, the final destruction of the system, and of all that 
cleave to it, by what the apostle calls, " brightness of the Re- 
deemer's coming," shall be signally accomplished. So we read 
of the stone that first smites the image upon its ten toes, or the 
ten kingdoms; and then the God of heaven sets up a kingdom 



210 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

which, shall not he destroyed or be left to other people, hut which 
shall break in pieces and consume all other kingdoms, and it 
shall stand for ever. There is, first, the revelation of the stone, 
*. e. the second coming of Christ; then there is the destruction 
of ail hostile dominions or empires, and, among others, that of 
the Roman apostasy also. So here it is, after the advent, that 
the beast "was slain, his body destroyed, and given to the de- 
vouring flame." 

Now notice how parallel this runs with the description of our 
Lord's advent in 2 Thess. i. 7: "To you who are troubled rest 
with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven 
with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on 
them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our 
Lord Jesus Christ : who shall be punished with everlasting de- 
struction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of 
his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and 
to be admired in all them that believe." You see how perfectly 
one passage responds to the other. First of all, there is to be 
the revelation of Christ, as the apostle says; next, he is to 
" take vengeance in flaming fire on them that know not God and 
obey not the gospel:" or, according to Daniel, this beast, or 
false prophet, or anti-christian horn, is to be committed to the 
burning flame; or, as St. John tells us, in the Apocalypse, 
"she," i. e. "the great whore," is to be burned, and "the smoke 
of her torment shall ascend up for ever and ever." This iden- 
tity of language, so specific in every case, cannot be accidental; 
it is the coincidence of men who were inspired by the same 
Spirit, and who proclaim the same grand events, — the destruc- 
tion of the apostasy by the personal appearance of the Lord, the 
glorifying of all that believe and are found', when he comes, 
" looking for him the second time without sin unto salvation," 
and his being " admired in all them that believe," and " glori- 
fied by his saints." 

Such is the blessed hope that is set before us in the gospel. 
Such is the prospect that we have, that all that is hostile to the 
Lord of glory shall be utterly destroyed, and that the truth in 
all its purity shall prevail, and overflow the human family from 
sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. It is 



THE COMING KINGDOM. 241 

thus that those who look for the utter destruction of Rome be- 
fore Christ comes look for a vain thing. It will last till he 
comes. It spans the chasm between Christ's first and second 
advent; it will be weakened by the force of the preintiinatory 
strokes of the stone cut out without hands; it will be consumed 
by the preaching of the gospel; it will be exhausted by the hos- 
tility of a thousand kings who once were charmed with its gran- 
deur, and made drunk with the cup of its intoxication; but it 
will only be utterly and completely destroyed and broken up by 
the brightness of the Redeemer's coining. 

This leads me to notice those passages I have read, which 
announce his coming. We have, in verse 9, a most sublime 
description: " I beheld till the Ancient of days did sit, whose 
garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the 
pure wool; his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as 
burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before 
him : thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thou- 
sand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was 
set, and the books were opened." This is plainly not the last 
judgment, for it precedes the destruction of antichrist; it is a 
judgment previous to the last, described, as I shall show you, in 
other parts of Scripture. But the first question is, who is the 
"Ancient of days?" Some think it is a description of God the 
Father; but it is never to be forgotten that there is not from the 
commencement of the Bible to its close any portrait, even in 
words, of the appearance to human eye of God the Father. He 
is spoken of as "dwelling in light inaccessible and full of glory;" 
as "the God whom no man hath seen nor can see;" and there is 
nothing like a picture for the eye given of God the Father. 
Just in the same manner, there is nothing in Scripture like a 
portrait of the Holy Ghost. Hence nothing is to my mind more 
revolting than to see a dove set forth as if it were the scriptural 
symbol of the Holy Spirit. I know the passage on which the 
idea is founded, in which it is stated that the Holy Spirit de- 
scended upon Jesus "like a dove:" but everyone who knows 
the construction of the Greek language, and will be at the trou- 
ble to consult the original, will see that it is not said that the 
Holy Spirit descended "in the form of a dove;" there is con- 

21 



242 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

veyed no such meaning; but that "he descended as a dove de- 
scends," i. e. with a fluttering, rapid movement of a dove; and 
for this purpose other birds might probably have been selected 
with equally expressive justice, in order to denote the idea in- 
tended. There is no picture of God the Father recorded in the 
Bible to have been seen by man; nor is there any picture or 
similitude of God the Holy Ghost : there is a portrait of Him 
who is "God manifest in the flesh," "seen of angels/' "justified 
in the Spirit," "believed on in the world," and finally, "re- 
ceived up into glory." This is to be expected. If this then be 
so, I think the inference is just, that the Ancient of days — 
great as may be the difficulty on this hypothesis of reconciling this 
with the statement in ver. 13 — is none else than the Lord Jesus 
Christ. That I am justified in making this assertion, seems to 
me plain from the corresponding statement in the Book of Beve- 
lation, where a description, analogous if not identical, is given of 
our blessed Lord avowedly and by name. First, " He cometh in 
the clouds, and every eye shall see him." Then says John, 
"I turned to see the voice which spake with me. And in the 
midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, 
clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps 
with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like 
wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; 
and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; 
and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his 
right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp 
two-edged sword : and his countenance was as the sun shineth in 
his strength." Now see what Daniel says of the Ancient of days : 
"His garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like 
the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his 
wheels as burning fire." 

Is not the sketch given by John as it were a reflection of the 
sketch by Daniel ? are not these substantial features of identity ? 
and is not the inference at least highly probable, that the being 
described by the one is delineated by the other ; and that in the 
picture of Daniel it was Jesus Christ in one of those frequently 
occurring anthropomorphic manifestations of himself prior to his 
incarnation ? If so, how clear the assertion of his deity as the 



THE COMING KINGDOM. 243 

Ancient of days with a garment white as snow, and before whom 
thousands and tens of thousands stood and ministered ! 

Another reason why I conclude that this is not a representation 
of G-od the Father, is the following : — The Father is never spoken 
of as coming to judge the world : " He has committed all judg- 
ment unto the Son." We must appear, not "before the judg- 
ment-seat" of G-od the Father, but before " the judgment-seat of 
Christ." And every prediction in the New Testament leads us 
to suppose that the Lord Jesus Christ is the judge, and appointed 
to be so, of the living and the dead. The only difficulty in the 
way of this interpretation is the statement contained in ver. 13 : 
" I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man 
came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, 
and they brought him near before him." Herein is the difficulty, 
because the portrait of this first-mentioned personage is unques- 
tionably that of our blessed Lord. If so, how can he be said to 
be " brought before the Ancient of days ?" I admit and feel the 
difficulty. I cannot explain it : I have not yet discovered what 
will be discovered — the solution of these words : but it is plain 
enough that the Son of man is the portrait of the Saviour. It 
appears to me scarcely less plain that the other passage is a por- 
trait of the Saviour also. The two may be portraits of the Saviour 
in his different aspects: one as the absolute G-od; the other as the 
incarnate Man : one as the Son of Glod, the Ancient of days ; the 
other as the Son of man, born of the Virgin, crucified for us, and 
for our salvation. That ver. 13 gives the picture of the Saviour, 
is plain ; for it is the foundation of all the imagery used by the 
apostles to denote him when he shall come to be glorified in his 
saints. Parallel passages, corroborative of this, are to be found in 
Matt. xxiv. 30 : "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of 
man in heaven." " Then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, 
and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven 
in power and great glory." We have the same picture in Matt, 
xxvi. 61, where he himself says, " Hereafter shall ye see the Son 
of man sitting on the right hand of power," (answering to the 
Ancient of days,) "and coming in the clouds of heaven:" and 
in Rev. i. 7, we l^ave the same picture again placed before us : 
"Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him." 



244 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

And in Acts vii. 55, 56, we have the very same picture as seen 
by Stephen, when, " being full of the Holy Ghost, he looked up 
into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the 
right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, 
and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God." 

We thus then see, first, the picture of Christ as the Ancient of 
days; next we see him coming in the clouds of heaven, with 
power and great glory : — the first, his essential deity ; the second, 
his mediatorial character ; and immediately after, we perceive, 
"there was given him his dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, 
that all people, nations, and languages should serve him : his 
dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, 
and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." I wish 
you to notice this fact : our Lord first descends from heaven borne 
upon the clouds, and appears upon the earth ; next, and imme- 
diately after this manifestation of himself, the saints take posses- 
sion of the kingdoms under the whole heaven. " All people, and 
nations, and kingdoms," it is here said, "shall serve him." 
Chronologically viewed, the order of proceeding is this : Christ 
comes first, Christ's foes are depressed and destroyed next, and 
the Millennium is immediately established upon earth. If this 
event, the destruction of the antichristian apostasy, be the first 
thing that takes place immediately after Christ's second advent, 
then the inference seems to me plain, whatever may be the diffi- 
culties that beset it, that the Millennium is not the dawn that 
ushers in Christ, but that Christ is the sun emerging from be- 
neath the horizon, whose noonday beams constitute that full 
millennial light and unshaded glory which shall overflow the 
whole habitable globe. It is impossible that all these descriptions 
should be merely figurative. It is too plainly expressed — too 
clearly taught in the language of the New Testament — too direct 
and historical in its tone and bearing, to be considered as a mere 
figurative delineation of a great providential event, which leads 
to the destruction of the man of sin and to the establishment of 
the kingdom of Christ. And if there were any difficulty or mis- 
take about it, surely it is cleared up by such a passage as that 
contained in Acts i. 9 : " When Christ had spoken these things 
unto the apostles, behold," it is added, " he was taken up into 



THE COMING KINGDOM. 245 

heaven, and a cloud received him out of their sight." You re- 
collect the apocalyptic picture is, "Behold, he cometh with 
clouds ;" " then shall ye see the sign of the Son of man coming 
in the clouds of heaven." Thus when Christ ascended into hea- 
ven, after his resurrection from the dead, the phraseology em- 
ployed to denote that ascension is, that " a cloud received him 
out of their sight;" and then, at ver. 10, we are told, that "while 
they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two 
men stood by them in white apparel ; which also said, Ye men 
of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven ? this same Jesus, 
which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like 
manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." He was taken up 
to heaven in a cloud : the prediction uttered by the angel was, 
that he should come exactly in the same manner ; and therefore 
the event that Christians are to anticipate as the brightest, the 
holiest, and the most precious that can occur, is, the second ap- 
pearance of him who left us in the cloud to plead at the Father's 
right hand, and who shall come again in all the pomp and 
grandeur of the Ancient of days, seated upon the clouds as his 
chariot, in form like unto the Son of man, consuming with ever- 
lasting fire the false prophets, the beast, and the apostasy ; taking 
vengeance upon all that know not God, and that obey not the 
gospel; and to be admired in the saints that have been raised from 
the dead, and gathered from the ranks of the living, and consti- 
tuting that happy and blessed consummation when the bridegroom 
shall have come and the bride shall have made herself ready. 

We gather then from all this, after careful comparison and ana- 
lysis, that Christ shall come with the speed and brilliancy of the 
lightning upon the clouds of heaven, and at a moment when the 
world shall be asking in scorn, Where is the promise of his 
coming ? and that lightning flame which precedes the chariot on 
which he comes shall penetrate every grave, until each saint that 
has fallen asleep in Jesus shall feel the reflux of a new life, and 
bone shall be joined to bone, and sinew to sinew, and the dead in 
Christ shall rise first. ' The despised and rejected of men will 
appear as the Ancient of days — the crucified between two thieves 
shall be seen coming in the glory of his Father in the clouds of 
heaven. What a piercing cry shall rise from the lost as they be- 

21* 



246 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

liold him whom they have pierced ! — in what bitter language 
shall they mourn ! What an exulting shout of victory and of 
gratulation shall roll from ten thousand times ten thousand 
tongues, " Lo, this is our God ! we have waited for him : blessed 
is he that cometh in the name of the Lord/' 

Immediately after this revelation of the Ancient of days, the 
kingdom of Christ shall be established upon earth. A kingdom 
is given him — an everlasting dominion — a dominion that shall 
not pass away. This is the same kingdom which is described in. 
the last two chapters of the Revelation, under the emblem of the 
new Jerusalem that cometh down from heaven : that kingdom 
whose constituent elements are righteousness, and peace, and joy; 
whose subj ects are kings, and priests, and saints : a kingdom in 
which present political greatness shall have no place ; in which 
great wealth shall have no welcome ; into which nothing that de- 
fileth shall enter, but only they who have washed their robes and 
made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 

The ninth verse indicates also that those saints who rise with 
Christ shall sit upon thrones. For the language of ver. 9 is, " I 
beheld until the thrones were cast down." There is but one who 
is to reign absolutely, the Ancient of days ; then how do we ex- 
plain the appearance of many " thrones V 9 This might be inex- 
plicable, if we had not parallel passages to show its meaning. 
One of these is found in Luke xxii. 30, where we find these 
words : " That ye may eat and drink at my table in my king- 
dom, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." So, Matt. xix. 28 : 
" Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the 
regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his 
glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve 
tribes of Israel." And this identifies the description with the 
description of the Ancient of days in ver. 9 of this chapter. And 
that this is not a deduction from a solitary or an isolated passage, 
is plain from another description in 1 Cor. vi. 2, 8 : " Do ye 
not know that the saints shall judge the world? . . . know 
ye not that we shall judge angels V I next turn to Rev. xx., at 
the description of the very commencement of the Millennium, — 
not after it, recollect — (and this shows that the Ancient of days, 
as described in ver. 9, comes before the Millennium.) At ver. 4 



THE COMING KINGDOM. 247 

of that chapter we have the words, "I saw thrones" with which 
compare the words of Daniel, "and the thrones were set," — "and 
they sat upon them." Who sat upon them ? Those that were 
raised and reigned with Christ a thousand years : — " and judg- 
ment was given unto them : and I saw the souls of them which 
were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of G-od, 
and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, 
neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their 
hands ; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 
But the rest of the dead," i. e., the unconverted, the unregene- 
rated dead, those that had the mark of the beast upon their fore- 
heads and had worshipped the beast — " lived not again until the 
thousand years were finished." 

Now, put all these passages together, study them at your lei- 
sure, and they will prove, I think, irresistibly, that ver. 9 of this 
chapter of Daniel, which describes the Ancient of days as com- 
ing in the clouds of heaven to judge the world and to receive a 
dominion and a kingdom, is a delineation of the Lord Jesus 
Christ coming prior to the millennial reign ; and the saints who 
are raised from the dead and gathered from the living who are 
found alive at that day, shall, as a mark of the esteem and affec- 
tion of their Lord, be placed on thrones beside the Saviour him- 
self, and concur with him in the judgment of all flesh. There 
is nothing strange or unreasonable in supposing that Christians 
will thus become the assessors of Christ; that they will express 
an Amen to his judgment, and sympathize with him in all his 
just and righteous decisions, then and there seen and felt to 
be so. 

In the next place, we read that the character of those who 
shall occupy this kingdom will be "saints;" but that their 
worldly aspect is to be "kingdoms, and languages, and people." 
This shows us that after the Ancient of days has come — after 
the thrones have been set — after the Son of man has been 
revealed in the clouds of heaven, — all nations, people, and lan- 
guages existing in all their diversity, and with all their distinc- 
tions, but individually and morally saints, though circumstantially 
nations, shall constitute that empire of peace and joy, over 
which he shall reign in glory and in beauty. If this be so, na- 



248 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

tions will exist in the millennial reign. Perhaps all the dis- 
tinctions that separate nation from nation shall be perpetuated 
then; but, while thej have different colours and complexions 
then as now — while they speak different tongues as they do 
now, — they shall have one grand characteristic in common, 
they shall be the saints of Grod, the sons of the Most High — 
Asia, Africa, America, and Europe, shall all be baptized by 
one Spirit, and washed in one fountain, and have in their 
hearts the image, the likeness, and the superscription of the 
Lamb. Flower will still differ from flower, star from star, coun- 
try from country; there will be all variety of modes, all diversity 
of circumstance, but perfect unity of moral and spiritual charac- 
ter, united and consolidated in Christ, and gathered round him 
to worship and adore him as the brightness of the Father's 
glory, and the express image of his person — the Saviour of sin- 
ners, the Lamb slain. Then Christians whose complexion is 
white shall be ashamed that they have ever looked with con- 
tempt on Christians whose faces are not so. Then the Ameri- 
can Christian who would refuse to approach the communion 
table in the company of the Christian black, will find that he 
with whom he would not partake of the symbol upon earth is a 
fellow-partaker with him of the substance in glory; and he shall 
wonder, if not grieve, that he was ever tempted to make so fool- 
ish and sinful a distinction where were the common law, the 
common faith, and the common Father, and one Spirit animat- 
ing and sustaining the hearts of both. Then nations that war- 
red with each other shall wonder that they did so. Then perhaps 
the buried dead of Waterloo shall start to their feet; the last 
sounds they recollected upon earth were the roar of artillery, 
the roll of the victorious drum, the cries of the wounded and the 
dying; and the first sounds they shall hear at that day shall be 
the trumpet of judgment, and the songs of the saved, and the 
curses of the lost, and the voice of Jesus saying, "Arise, ye 
dead, and come to judgment!" And how shall the French 
Christian marvel that he ever consented to destroy the British 
Christian in battle, or that man ever wielded against man any 
other than spiritual weapons ! 

Languages also shall exist in that day: for there shall be 



THE COMING KINGDOM. 249 

" people, and nations, and languages/' The division of tongues 
was part of the curse; but the reversal of that curse will not be 
the reduction of languages into one, but the perpetuation of all 
languages, each nation understanding what the other speaks. 
The miracle at Pentecost was not that all the apostles spoke one 
language, and all that believed spoke the same language; but 
that each man spoke in his own tongue, and each understood 
what his neighbour spoke. So shall it be in the millennial day. 
There shall be many tongues, but one sentiment; many lan- 
guages by many tongues, but each understanding perfectly the 
other: the many languages, like the cleff's in music, shall only 
constitute the more glorious harmony; there shall not be uni- 
formity of speech, but unity of sentiment. There will not be 
the monotony of a single language, but the component harmony 
of many languages, praising one Grod and the Lamb for ever and 
ever. 

Then the unity of character of all people and languages, and 
nations, and tongues is, that they shall all " serve and obey him.- 
All the nations of the globe shall perpetually behold and praise 
the Lamb. Every language shall be burdened with this one 
song; every heart shall overflow with this all-encompassing and 
adoring love; every voice shall give utterance to an unceasing 
anthem; all serve and obey him in that blessed abode where 
they " rest not day nor night, saying, Unto him that loved us, 
and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made 
us, out of every language and people and tongue, kings and 
priests unto our God, to him be glory and dominion for ever." 

We now gather from the whole of this statement, then, that 
truth shall eventually triumph; there is no reason to doubt that 
the right and the true and the holy shall have the victory. All 
dominions that are hostile to Christ must give way. All king- 
doms incompatible with his must be dissolved. The kingdoms 
of this world have their symbols in the lion, the bear, the leo- 
pard, and the fourth dreadful and terrible beast; and by a law 
universally proved, their passions and discord shall precipitate 
their own destruction ; but Christ's kingdom has nothing anar- 
chical, because it has nothing sinful in it. It has not one ele- 
ment of decay, because into it nothing that defileth can enter. 



250 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

Suns shall grow pale, stars shall "become dim; the crescent shall 
wane, the crucifix shall fall from the hands of him that holds it : 
Judaism shall be cast away an exhausted formula : the philoso- 
phy of Socrates and Plato, the Academy and the Stoa, shall be 
forgotten, and their discussions cease. All other names shall 
be shaded or utterly disappear; and Christ's name shall be all, 
and Christ's kingdom shall extend over all the earth, and all 
shall bless him and be blessed in him. We see already tokens 
of that day. I take a bright view of the coming days. I do 
not believe that the man of sin shall reassert his ancient po- 
litical supremacy in this land, or that he shall be able any more 
to wield the destinies of the nations of the earth, or to persecute 
the saints of G-od, at least on a gigantic scale. I believe, too, 
that there shall be given before the time of the end auguries and 
instalments of the coming glory, partly the fulfilment of Joel ii. 
28. What progress do knowledge, science, education, Chris- 
tianity, the Bible, make everywhere throughout the world at 
this moment ! Do we not see the whole human family drawing 
nearer to each other? Do we not see the two great nations, 
America and England, speaking a tongue that promises more 
and more every day to become the tongue of the whole world? 
Do we not see all languages, however diversified, becoming re- 
ducible to two, three, or four at the very most, — Christians be- 
coming less earthly and Christianity less alloyed? What are 
these but the tokens of the approaching glory — voices in the 
wilderness preparing the way of the Lord — messengers sent 
before to announce that the bridegroom cometh? I see flowers 
of paradise begin to bloom in many a desert ; and afar, many a 
temple spire emerging into the light of rising and setting suns 
where pagodas were before. I can see the first rays of the Sun 
of righteousness beginning to penetrate the Mosque and the Al- 
hambra, and to ''surprise the superstitious devotee in the midst 
of his devotions. The Indian begins to burn his Shaster, the 
Arab his Koran, and the Chinaman his gods. Fewer are found 
in Pekin to cast their infants in the streets to perish; fewer still 
in India to light the flames that are to consume the widow; 
fewer still to drag the wheels of the chariot of Juggernaut over 
the bodies of his prostrate devotees. I see upon all sides the 



THE COMING KINGDOM. 251 

sea of barbarism and superstition begin to ebb, and many a dove 
to take wing and fly over the length and breadth of the world's 
chaotic flood, giving tokens that the Prince of peace is on his 
way, warning us that the sound of his approach already breaks 
upon the ear. Let us hail the twilight : let us urge on, as far as 
we can, the coming day; and let us rest assured, whatever the 
prospects be, because God has said it, that Christ will have a 
kingdom and a dominion which shall not pass away — a king- 
dom that shall not be destroyed; and that the power and do- 
minion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole hea- 
ven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most 
High, whose kingdom is an everlasting dominion, and all nations 
shall serve and obey him. Are you members of his church now, 
that you may be members of his church then? Are you the 
saints of God by grace, or the sinners of the world still by na- 
ture ? Have you been translated from the kingdom of Satan into 
the kingdom of God's clear Son? Is the prospect which Daniel 
saw a bright one for you? When this trumpet shall sound, will 
it startle you with terror, or cheer your soul with joy? What 
the gospel is to you now, the sound of that trumpet will be to 
you then. The interest that you have in the gospel now will de- 
termine the event of which that sound will be the precursor then. 
My dear friends, let me ask you, in the prospect of that day, to 
resolve that you will be found in the number of the saints of 
God — that you will be, if it be possible, the sons of the Most 
High — that no persecutions that are possible, no scorn that may 
assail, no bribes that may seduce you, no sins that may tempt 
you, shall prevent you from arising, and going to your Father, 
and saying, " Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy 
sight;" and he will rise and meet you; and he will say, " Bring- 
forth the fairest robe, and. put it on him, and let there be joy; for 
this my son was dead and is alive, was lost and is found." 



• 252 



LECTURE XVIII. 

THE MOSLEM. 

Daniel viii. 

Yhtt will easily perceive that it is necessary to read the whole 
of this chapter as the basis of a consecutive exposition. It is an 
his<:orieo-prophetical narrative, and must he studied as a whole. 
Because it is not doctrinal theology, it is not on that account to 
he passed over as uninstructive. God directed it to he written 
for our learning ; at the same time it embosoms instructive les- 
sons, which we shall not fail to gather as we proceed. 

The signs by which great truths are set forth in this chapter are 
in perfect accordance with what is contained and set forth in pre- 
vious portions of this book. All ancient writers have set forth 
truth hieroglyphically, with greater or less propriety. Symbols 
remain when languages change, and thus become the most perma- 
nent representatives of great truths. Especially does it seem ap- 
propriate to set forth what shall take place in the latter days, still 
future, under some of these hieroglyphic symbols. If the future 
had been so plainly revealed that all could read future as they 
see present things, men's responsibility would have been destroyed. 
If, on the other hand, it had been so dimly disclosed that nobod}'- 
could understand it at all, there would have been little use in dis- 
closing it at all. If some would say these prophecies are meant 
to be understood after they have been revealed, we ask them, 
why were they previously given ? Do you say that it is to con- 
vince man that God's Word is truth? But the fulfilment of many 
stretches into the millennial glory, and we shall need then no addi- 
tional conviction that God's Word is true, for all skepticism will 
have passed away ; and we shall see and know God, whom there 



THE MOSLEM. 253 

will be none to deny. It is, rather, more dutiful in us reverently to 
study, and humbly to explain as we discover truth, and where we 
cannot see clearly, patiently to wait, aware that what we know not 
now we shall know hereafter. 

The bear in the former vision is plainly the ram in the pre- 
sent, as I explained to you in the course of a previous lecture. 
The two horns that start up on the head of the ram are, as I ex- 
plained, the Medes and the Persians, constituting one great king- 
dom. The ram's head of gold was, as every historian will tell 
you, the diadem of the Persian king, this alone identifying that 
symbol with the personage to whom it refers; and " pushing west- 
ward," denotes that empire subduing Lydia and Babylon by 
Cyrus, and Egypt by Cambyses. . The he-goat is plainly explained 
in the chapter to be the Macedonian power; his " pushing" (as 
it is stated in verse 4) " westward, northward, and southward, so 
that no beast might stand before him/' denotes his conquests, his 
advancing and irresistible might. The notable horn that starts 
up between the ears of the goat might shortly be shown to be, 
what it may be indisputably proved, Alexander the Great, by 
whom the Persian ram was destroyed, and by whose destruction 
immense addition was made to his own empire. This victorious 
progress of Alexander is matter of history ; it is not matter of 
conjecture from prophecy, but matter of historical fact. The great 
horn, which typified Alexander, as we read in this passage, was 
broken, not gradually wasted away, not desolated inch by inch 
until it disappeared, but snapped asunder, to indicate that his 
sovereignty, with his life, was suddenly cut short. Everybody 
who knows his biography is aware that Alexander was seized with 
fever in the very midst of his victories, and died. History teaches 
us what the prophecy indicates by four notable horns toward the 
four winds of heaven, as is stated in ver. 8 ; it tells us that when 
Alexander fell, his empire was divided among his four generals : 
Cassander had Greece ; Thrace, with its provinces, was given to 
Lysimachus ; Egypt to Ptolemy ; and the remainder of Asia was 
given to Seleucus. We have thus the biography of Alexander 
sketched by Daniel long before Alexander was born. There is 
no other monarch in the world to whom the description here given 
would apply; there is no other people in the world's history with 

22 



9M PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

which, the events that are here delineated can he made to coin- 
cide; the inference, therefore, is irresistible, that history here 
records with its pen what prophecy has sketched with its luminous 
pencil. And so man in his writings, designedly, consciously, or 
otherwise, witnesses to the fulfilment of the prophecies of God; 
and it is in so doing that history evermore presents, if we need 
such additional testimony, fresh evidence that God's word is truth. 
God sketches the outline of the greatest general's life, and that 
great general comes forward at the appointed time, and sets him- 
self, ignorant of it all the while, to fill it up. Alexander thought 
he was doing his own work, subserving his own ambition, adding 
to the splendour of an illustrious name, and to the support and 
extension of an almost unrivalled empire; he thought that his 
own hand was working out what his own great genius planned: 
mistaken man ! Great things are put into a little space ; we see 
them by the light of God's truth. Alexander was filling up the 
outline that God had sketched; he was not the directing hand, 
but the obedient pencil ; not the writer, but the mere pen ; he 
was not the originator, but the humble copyist ; and thus his 
glory becomes pale, his grandeur mean, while we see that God 
had arranged all the space that he was to cover, and determined 
the limits of his actions hundreds of years before Alexander 
stepped upon the field. 

Thus one result of the study of prophecy is, to make great men 
feel humble, and little men, through the knowledge of God's word, 
feel happy. 

I have already dwelt, however, on the sketch of Alexander and 
his empire, as it was depicted in a previous prophecy. I proceed 
in this, to show — what has been thought the more difficult part 
of it — what is meant by the "little horn/' i. e. the power, sove- 
reignty, rule, which is hgre described. It has been thought 
difficult, because there is a description of the Romish power, under 
the picture of a "little horn," in a previous chapter. But it may 
easily be seen that little horn is perfectly distinct from the one 
sketched here. The former sprang out of the fourth kingdom, 
and out of the fourth kingdom in its tenfold division. This horn 
plainly springs out of an eastern, or the Grasco-Macedonian empire, 
and is characterized by other features, and gives birth to other and 



THE MOSLEM. 255 

very different exploits. It must be a religious, or politico-ecclesias- 
tical power, from its physical smallness and its moral triumphs. 
Let us see, then, what it refers to ; and search if we can find any 
such body to which we can apply it. I may state, that some have 
supposed this little horn to be Antiochus Epiphanes, who appeared 
three hundred years before the birth of Christ, and signalized him- 
self by his opposition to God, and by the dishonour which he 
brought upon the religion of Judea. But this seems improbable, 
from the following circumstances, which I submit to your consi- 
deration. The little horn was to arise out of one of the four Macedo- 
nian empires into which the empire, or dynasty, of Alexander was 
split. In the second place, this kingdom was to arise at the latter 
end of the four kingdoms of Alexander, or Greek dynasties, as ex- 
plained in verse 3. The characteristic of this little horn was to be a 
kingly power. The four horns are four kings; and the notable horn 
between the eyes another king, who was to have a fierce counte- 
nance, and was to teach dark oracular sayings. And in the next 
place, he was to have great success toward the east, and toward 
the " glory" — this last expression denoting plainly Jerusalem : 
for the apostle says — u the Jews, to whom pertained the adoption, 
the covenants, and the glory" In the next plaice, the success of 
this little horn was to be so great, that it should cast truth, i. e. 
we suppose, Christianity, to the ground, and spread and propagate 
itself by craft. It was to take away the daily sacrifice, prayer, 
praise, and -thanksgiving ; and it was to stamp upon all secular 
powers, " the mighty ones," and upon "the people of the holy 
ones." And the reason why the holy ones upon whom it was thus 
to stamp were thus depressed, is stated, in ver. 12, to have been 
"by reason of their transgression." And the punishment thus 
inflicted on them is stated in ver. 19 to be " at the latter end of the 
indignation." And this power, in the next place, was to magnify 
itself against "the prince of the host. " And it was to last in its 
power exactly 2300 prophetic days, i, c. 2300 literal years. Now 
the first question that we have to determine, is, who were the 
people that were thus to be visited in consequence of their trans- 
gression, at the latter end of the indignation, to be stamped upon 
and destroyed, by reason of their sin, by the great power; and 
this will help us more clearly to identify it. That it cannot be 
t 



256 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

the Jews, I think is plain, for many reasons. From the days of 
Daniel to the final overthrow of the Jews, there were only two 
powers that desolated or destroyed them; — the first, Antioclms 
Epiphanes, 300 years before the birth of our Lord; and the 
second, the Roman. And if I show, as I will do by-and-by, 
that this little horn cannot be either of these, I then show that 
the Jews are not the people who are here described as the holy 
ones and the mighty ones, but some other peoj)le, whom we are 
hereafter to specify. That this little horn does not denote Anti- 
ochus Epiphanes, is clear from this one circumstance, that, like 
all the other horns mentioned by Daniel, it must be the symbol 
of a continuous L sovereignty, not of one solitary individual who 
starts into existence, and then disappears, but of a realm or sove- 
reignty, governed, protected, and preserved by him. But Anti- 
ochus Epiphanes was only a single individual, who appeared 
upon the stage and passed away. The kingdom of Antiochus 
never could be said, like that of this little horn, to be a gigantic 
empire, prospering toward the south and toward the east. In 
the days of Antiochus, the Jews' transgression was not full; for 
at that period the Jewish dynasty was almost in its meridian 
glory : some of its most illustrious men were then living. And, 
lastly, Antiochus died about 300 years after the commencement 
of the 2300 years which describe the duration of the dynasty 
represented by the little horn. From these facts it is plain that 
the little horn does not describe Antiochus Epiphanes. And in 
the next place, it cannot refer to the Romans, for the Roman 
power did not increase eastward, so much as this is described to 
have done; but it increased specially westward and northward. 
Neither did the Roman power increase by craft; for there was 
very little craft in the aggressions, the victories, or the progress 
of Rome, but rather honesty, manliness, and open battle. And 
again, the Roman power was not a realm that rose out of Mace- 
don, but from Latium. And lastly, the Roman power had no 
hold in Greece, until long after the destruction of Jerusalem. 
And if the little horn represents Rome pagan, it is utterly ab- 
surd to suppose that it can represent Rome papal at the same 
time. There are in prophecy two distinct symbols for Rome in 
its pagan, and Rome in its papal state; the one is the " iron 



THE MOSLEM. 257 

legs," or Rome pagan, and the other is the " ten toes," iron 
mixed with clay, describing Rome papal; and it cannot, there- 
fore, refer to Rome. In the Apocalypse, the seven-headed dra- 
gon is pagan Rome, and the seven-headed, ten-horned beast is 
papal Rome. And since Antiochus Epiphanes and the Romans 
were the only two powers who persecuted the Jews, and as these 
are not the two powers here indicated, — for it is certain that 
they are not, either of them, the power indicated by the little 
horn, — so the Jews, over whom they triumphed, are not the peo- 
ple indicated by those who are here described as " the holy 
ones/' and the " transgressing people." I believe, therefore, 
that it denotes professing Christendom, which was visited in the 
last days of the Grgeco-Macedonian empire, by reason of the 
transgression of its people, as I showed you under the fifth 
seal, in my Apocalyptic Sketches, when describing the irruption 
of the Turks and Saracens into Asia and Europe, in order to 
chastise " heathen Christendom" for its idolatry. Then the epi- 
thet u mighty" is totally inapplicable to the Jews. They never 
were a* mighty people, though they might have been represented 
as a "holy people;" and verse 23 seems almost to identify the 
Gentiles; for it declares, that " in the latter times of the four 
kingdoms, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king 
of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall 
stand up." In my judgment, therefore, and in the judgment of 
those who have studied and written at length upon the subject 
of this prophecy, it is the Turkish or Mohammedan power that 
is here represented by the little horn. I have showed you that 
it cannot be Antiochus, as some theologians hold; because in so 
many particulars the application fails in reference to him. It 
cannot be the Roman power, because in every particular the ap- 
plication fails. It must, therefore, be some other power; and 
the features delineated by the prophet, and the facts thrown up 
in the history of Mohammedanism, so completely tally, that the 
inference is almost irresistible, that it is the Turkish or Moham- 
medan power that is here intended. 

The history of its rise and progress may be comprehended in 
a few sentences. It originated in Chorassin, a part of Parthia 
south of the Oxus, and in the very territory of the Syrian, or 

22* 



258 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

Grasco-Macedonian empire. The birth-place of Mohammedanism 
is, therefore, the very locality here indicated in prophecy. In 
that eastern territory, so clearly indicated as the place of its rise, 
the Turcomans, a shepherd tribe, revolted against their- ruler; 
became independent; elected Togrul Beg as their chief, who ap- 
peared at this moment a •" little horn," the petty chief of a petty 
but increasing clan; so that his origin, rise, and beginning may 
fairly be represented, as far as his physical prominence is refer- 
red to, by the symbol of a little horn. This Togrul Beg, having 
thus become the chief of this petty tribe, moved first southward, 
at the call of the Caliph of Bagdad. He added to his victories 
year after year, and was at length appointed, by reason of his 
success, the caliph-general of Islam. He married the caliph's 
daughter, and became, from a petty and contemptible chief, the 
royal and all but irresistible propagandist of Mohammedan fanati- 
cism. By-and-by he conquered Judea, "the glory," or the "glo- 
rious land" that is here alluded to. He next overran Asiatic 
Christendom, and already he developed every feature of the cha- 
racter described in verse 23, as the "king of a fierce counte- 
nance," causing to understand dark sentences; mighty in his own 
power, but not by his own power, but by the influence of a fana- 
tical system which he adopted, progressing and prospering won- 
derfully, destroying the mightiest nations and the holy people ; 
through his policy causing craft to prosper in the land, and mag- 
nifying himself even against the Prince of princes; till, as we 
shall afterward show, he was ultimately broken without hand. 
And to show how completely this chief, rising from a little to be 
a great and powerful sovereign, fulfilled, in his history, the pre- 
dictions of this prophecy, I quote from the unwilling, but faith- 
ful, narrator, Gibbon, who says — "Togrul Beg extended his 
jurisdiction from the Chinese frontier, "west and south," — almost 
the very language of the prophecy, — " as far the neighbourhood 
of Constantinople, the holy city, Jerusalem," — again using the 
very language of prophecy, — " and the spicy groves of Arabia 
Felix; and extended a dominion which surpassed the Asiatic 
reign of Cyrus and of the caliphs." Just read the prophecy at 
your leisure; and recollect, as you read, the sketch I have given 
from Gibbon, and you will find that the prophet describes 



THE MOSLEM. 259 

what shall be most minutely; and the historian, who had never 
read the prophecy, records, with equal fidelity, what has been ; and 
Gibbon the skeptic becomes the commentator on Daniel the pro- 
phet, and presents the unconscious and the unwilling proof, that 
"holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 

This prince, or horn, or power, is described as being " of a 
fierce countenance." It is interesting to notice, in reading the 
history of Gibbon, that the expression he more than once uses 
to denote Mohammedanism, is "fierceness," or "ferocity." For 
instance, this very expression occurs in the pages of Gibbon : — 
"The Turkish nations still breathed the fierceness of the desert;" 
and one of the phrases that Gibbon uses is, "he was fierce as 
a Turk;" the very language of the prophet being employed by 
the infidel and unbelieving historian. 

The prophet further adds : " lie waxed great to the host of 
heaven : cast down of the host and of the stars to the ground, 
and stamped on them;" "the daily sacrifice was taken away — 
magnified himself against the prince of the host" — " cast down 
truth to the ground — caused craft to prosper." These features 
are recorded by the historian. Thus Gibbon writes : " By the 
choice of the sultan, Nice was preferred for his palace and his 
fortress ; and the divinity of Christ was denied and derided in 
the same temple in which it had been pronounced by a general 
synod." The Council of Nice was held A. d. 315, and one of its 
greatest conclusions was, that the deity of Christ was a plain and 
obvious dogma of Holy Writ. 

It is stated here of this fierce king, that " he magnified him- 
self against the Prince of princes :" the historian states the fact, 
that Nice, distinguished for its unequivocal testimony to the deity 
of Christ, was selected by the sultan as his palace and fortress, in 
which they scorned and derided that great truth with the confes- 
sion of which Nice is identified in ecclesiastical history. Gibbon 
continues : " The unity of G-od and the mission of Mohammed 
were preached in the mosques ; on the hard conditions of tribute 
or servitude the Greek Christians might enjoy the exercise of 
their religion : but the most holy churches were profaned ; the 
priests and bishops were insulted, and were compelled to suffer 
the triumph of the pagans, and to witness the apostasy of their 



260 PKOPHETIC STUDIES. 

brethren." G-ibbon thus testifies how completely every feature I 
have gathered from the portrait of the prophet is embodied in the 
dark history and development of that fierce and powerful fana- 
ticism which was let loose, as I showed you in my Lectures on 
the Apocalypse under the figure of the irruption of Euphratean 
horsemen, for the express purpose of punishing idolatrous Chris- 
tendom for the transgressions into which they had fallen, that is, 
the idolatry with which they had desecrated the worship and de- 
filed the temple of God. 

I think, then, from these points of coincidence, and from the 
utter impossibility of applying this picture to any other power in 
actual history, we are warranted in concluding that the " little 
horn" that rose up in the eastern empire, of fierce countenance, 
as described by the prophet, and recorded by the historian, 
" causing to understand" — for the word in the original is in this 
mood, u causing to understand" — dark, mysterious, and oracular 
sayings, that is, the teaching of the Koran, stamping upon God's 
people, or, as Gibbon says, "insulting the bishops and the 
priests," and degrading every Christian with whom they came 
into contact, and magnifying himself against the prince of the 
host ; in all these coincidences we have the conclusive evidence, 
or, at least, the strongest possible presumption, that Gibbon, in 
describing the irruption of Mohammedan fanaticism, with all its 
characteristic features, is the echo of the voice of Daniel describ- 
ing the little horn springing up in the eastern empire, the fierce 
king punishing professing Christendom for its great transgression. 
The following extracts present a correct idea of Mohammed and 
Mohammedanism : — 

Gibbon describes the Koran, with its dark sentences, as an 
" endless incoherent rhapsody of fable and precept and declama- 
tion, which seldom excites a sentiment or an idea, which some- 
times crawls in the dust, and is sometimes lost in the clouds." 

Gibbon states : " In the exercise of political government Mo- 
hammed was compelled to abate the stern rigour of fanaticism, to 
comply with the prejudices and passions of his followers, and to 
employ even the vices of mankind as the instruments of their 
salvation. The use of fraud and perfidy, of cruelty and injustice, 
was often subservient to the propagation of the faith, and Mo- 






THE MOSLEM. 261 

hammed commanded or approved the assassination of the Jews and 
idolaters who had escaped from the field of battle. By the repe- 
tition of such acts the character of Mohammed must have been 
gradually stained, and the influence of such pernicious habits 
would be poorly compensated by the practice of the personal and 
social virtues which are necessary to maintain the reputation of a 
prophet among his sectaries and friends. Of his last years ambi- 
tion was the ruling passion, and a politician well suspected that 
he secretly smiled (the victorious impostor) at the enthusiasm of 
his youth and the credulity of his proselytes. In the support of 
truth the arts of fraud and fiction may be deemed less criminal, 
and he would have started for the foulness of the means, had he 
not been satisfied of the importance and justice of the end." 

" Light and darkness," says Dr. Hales, " were not more oppo- 
site than Christ and Mohammed. It is no wonder, therefore, that 
a sensual and corrupt world loved darkness more than light, be- 
cause their deeds were evil — more congenial to the Koran of Mo- 
hammed than to the gospel of Christ. The pure and holy Jesus, 
who did no sin, nor was guile found in his mouth — who went 
about doing good to the bodies and souls of men by his beneficent 
miracles, and still more salutary doctrines — nobly and boldly 
challenged his enemies to impeach his moral character if they 
could : 'Which of you convinceth me of sin?' — and even his be- 
trayer and persecutors bore testimony to the l innocent blood' of 
the Son of G-od, the righteous Son of man. On the contrary, 
boundless ambition and unbridled lust, cloaked under the most 
consummate and presumptuous hypocrisy, possessed like fiends the 
heart of Mohammed. He was indeed a true son of Belial. ' None 
but great souls can be completely wicked f little souls want the 
ability to contrive and to execute splendid mischief on a great 
scale. Mohammed wore the mask of sanctity and mortification 
while he was preparing his imposture and establishing his reputa- 
tion as an apostle of G-od and a reformer of the world. But while 
his mission was acknowledged, and his deluded followers became 
disposed to swallow the greatest impieties and absurdities, impli- 
citly surrendering to him all authority over their souls, their 
senses, and their understandings, he quickly threw off the mask 
and broke through all the restraints that prudence and policy had 



262 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

hitherto laid on his impetuous passions, and went about as a 
raging and roaring lion, seeking whom he might devour, and with 
the most matchless effrontery, and most daring impiety, he de- 
liberately brought down pretended revelations from heaven to 
sanction his lies and pander to his vices. " 

"If ever there was a finished hypocrite, possessed of the most 
audacious and shameless effrontery, it surely was Mohammed, 
whose Grod was his belly, who gloried in his shame — who minded 
earthly things, under the garb of sanctity and religion. ;; 

"Islauiism, therefore, in its whole extent, is adverse to the 
mild spirit and liberal genius of Christianity. It was hatched 
and matured in hypocrisy and falsehood. It was addressed to the 
appetites and passions of a sensual and corrupt people. It was 
distinguished by a spirit of hatred and hostility to the rest of 
mankind — Christians, Jews, pagans. It befriended arbitrary and- 
despotic power over the souls and bodies of men. It encouraged 
ignorance, by representing all liberal arts and sciences as unne- 
cessary or as prejudicial, either if not warranted by, or if con- 
trary to, the Koran ; and it produced a torpor and apathy which 
chilled and deadened every tendency to speculative exertion and 
moral improvement by the desolating doctrine of fixed fate or 
predestination." 

Now the next question — and it will be very shortly answered 
— is, When did the 2300 years, at the end of which this " little 
horn" was to fail, begin ? — and at what period therefore may it 
be supposed that its prosperity closed ? It is not the date of the 
rise but of the decay of Mohammedanism that is here indicated. 
The two dates, at one of which the 2300 years must commence, 
are either the year 538 b. c, when the supremacy of the Persian 
and Macedonian empire began, or the year 480 B. c, just prior 
to the defeat of Xerxes on his invasion of Greece. The one period 
is the commencement of the Persian dynasty, the second is the 
era of its meridian, or its noontide power and glory. We may 
prefer, for various reasons, the latter period. Take the meridian 
glory of Persia as its commencement ; and then we shall find that 
the end of the 2300 years will bring us down to a. d. 1820. 
Bicheno, who lived in the last century, stated in 1797 that the 
2300 years, during the last part of which the Mohammedan de- 



THE MOSLEM, 263 

lusion was to prosper, prevail, and 3tamp under foot all that op- 
posed it, began 480 b. c, and would terminate, as he then said, 
about A. D. 1820. Thirty years ago then, if this prophecy be 
correct, or, rather, if this application of th« elate here specified 
be the true one, the Mohammedan empire began to give way. Is 
this matter of fact, or is it not ? I might give you, at great 
length, evidence that it is so. For instance, it is stated in the 
Annual Register for the year 1820, "The Ottoman empire had 
reached its meridian strength, free from all foreign invasion, and 
in possession of perfect domestic peace." Every thing in the 
history of Turkey, up to the spring of 1820, was powerful, peace- 
ful, prosperous. Now just notice what begins to take place at 
that period. In the summer of that year, Ali Pacha revolted 
against the dominion of the sultan, and intestine war began. In 
October, 1820, the Greek insurrection took place; and Turkey 
was crippled in its strength and reduced in its territory. And 
from 1820, if anybody will be at the trouble to read its history, 
down to the present hour, plague, earthquake, fire, revolt, de- 
struction, have not ceased continually to lay it waste, till, in the 
language of Lamartine, "Turkey is dying rapidly for want of 
Turks." Since 1820, Greece, Wallachia, Moldavia, Algiers, 
have been separated from the power of the Moslem dominion : 
and a missionary, writing recently from Constantinople, says, 
" Turkey is in the agony of dissolution f and a traveller, writing 
on the same subject, says, "There is no law, no safety for pro- 
perty, in this unhappy country." It requires no prophecy to 
satisfy us that the Mohammedan power is rapidly falling to ruin, 
Now, is this an accidental coincidence ? Four hundred and eighty 
years before Christ, when the Persian laws were supreme, and 
the Persian empire was in its meridian power, a " little horn" is 
predicted to spring up in after ages with features that identify it 
with the Mohammedan superstition ; the very period of the end of 
its duration is assigned, 2300 years, from b. c. 480 ; and so when 
the end of this 2300 years comes — not a year before or a year 
after — Turkey begins to hear the knell of its approaching doom, 
and, piecemeal, year by year, it falls to ruin ; and every one who 
reads the present history of that country knows that every day 
soma new revolutionary reform is taking place in its government. 



264 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

The paddle-wheel disturbs the silence of its waters j the Euro- 
pean engineer is invited to Constantinople ; Protestant residents 
are multiplying in every direction in the midst of it ; the sultan 
is casting off the dreps, the forms, the ceremonies, the habits of 
the Turk • it is ceasing to be a capital crime for a Turk to be- 
come a Christian. The sultan has given leave to the Jews to 
build a temple, if they please, in the midst of Jerusalem : and 
only lately, her Majesty's representative at the court of the sultan 
secured rights and privileges for all denominations of Christians, 
and for those of the ancient Armenian churches, utterly incom- 
patible with the essential principles of the Koran: — "it dies 
without hand." And what renders yet more striking all this 
fulfilment of prophecy is the fact, that the " little horn" was not, 
like that which sprang up between the eyes of the goat, to be 
snapped in sunder, but was to be broken without hands; or, to 
use the apocalyptic symbol, the great river Euphrates was to 
be gradually dried up. You have, in the first case, the little horn 
suddenly broken ; but you have in this case the power or dynasty 
symbolized by the little horn broken without hands — a gradual 
desolation and decay corresponding to the prediction so plainly 
annunciated by Daniel. 

I have stated, then, the prophecy and the plain historic fact. 
Let us now draw from it, for ourselves, one or two useful lessons. 
And the first is this, that all the otherwise inexplicable facts in 
the history of the church and of the world are here plainly ex- 
plained. Not one cloud has fallen upon the church that God did 
not foresee ; not one opposing force has arisen to obstruct the 
march of the everlasting gospel which prophecy has not pre- 
dicted. There has occurred no unexpected dislocation — there has 
taken place in the history of the people of Christ no unforeseen 
corruption ; all has come as God foresaw, and as his prophets 
predicted ; and therefore we know that God has not because of 
these things forsaken his church ; but rather, because these have 
occurred, he has shown his Providence actiDg in the world's his- 
tory that which his Spirit inspired in the prophecy of ancient 
writers. 

It is thus, too, that we see in the rise and origin of this system 
the ever active presence and-power of Satan. Mohammedanism 



THE MOSLEM. 265 

came " like a dark smoke," as the Apocalypse tells us, " from 
the bottomless pit." Satan is its agent and its inherent might. 
But his limits are fixed. How delightful to know that God has 
fixed the bound-lines of his power, and told us in words which can 
never be contradicted or reversed, when, where, and how his 
power and his policy shall cease together. And in the next place, 
do we not see in the very existence of Christianity, amid all those 
dark and overshadowing superstitions, an evidence of the presence 
of God ? The gospel has been the creation and the care of the 
living God, or it must have been extinguished long ago. All 
elements have assailed it — all forms have tried to overshadow 
it — but it has emerged not only existing, but triumphant, from 
them all, and proved that it is linked with the throne, over- 
shadowed by the presence, inspired by the truth, and protected 
by the power of God himself. And every one of these triumphs 
of the gospel is surely a fore-augury and a fore-earnest that it 
will eventually triumph. A religion that has survived so much 
is surely not destined to perish ; a book that has emerged from 
so many dread collisions is surely not a book that is to be ulti- 
mately destroyed. What the gospel has done is a pledge and 
presentiment of what the gospel will do. Its existence to-day is 
the strongest proof that it will last while the sun and moon en- 
dure. Every prophet says so; every history indicates that it 
will be so, and every fact that is occurring around us — the folly 
of its opponents and the wisdom of its friends, speech and silence — 
is giving token of its rapid and approaching triumph. The cres- 
cent wanes, and the cry of the Muezzim becomes fainter — the 
cimeter is less appealed to and craft is more exposed. The Hin- 
doo is ceasing to light the fire for the consumption of the widow, 
and the China-woman refuses to leave her babe to perish in the 
streets of Pekin. The Indian objects to drag the sanguinary 
chariot of Juggernaut over the bleeding remains of his fellow- 
creatures, and the Hindoo mother no longer casts the infant that 
she bore into the waters of the Ganges. The altars of paganism 
crumble, the lights in the temple of superstition are being extin- 
guished one by one, and the first dawn begins to overspread the 
distant lands of the world, of that emerging " Sun," which shall 
soon arise with " healing in his wings," assume his noontide 

23 



266 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

throne, and cover the whole earth with that glory that never shall 
be diminished. The Thames and the Tiber, the Danube and the 
Rhone, among the waters of Europe, shall soon call on the Gan- 
ges, the Euphrates, and Nile in the East, and both joined by the 
Ohio, the Missouri, and Mississippi, the great rivers of America, 
in the far West, shall meet and mingle ; and the praise of the 
Lord shall arise as the voice of many waters, and the wide world 
shall be covered with the knowledge of him, as the waters cover 
the channels of the great deep. All that God has proclaimed to 
be fulfilled has been fulfilled ; all that God has said is to be ful- 
filled in the future will be fulfilled ; all shall bless him and shall 
be blessed in him. We stand on the threshold of great and 
solemn events : a great epoch, in which a thousand prophecies are 
being fulfilled, is just at our doors ; an era, as I have told you be- 
fore, of short but terrible duration, in which old controversies 
shall be revived and new controversies shall be added, and all 
dangers meet and mingle in one dread turmoil, is just about to 
overtake us. There is at the present moment a pause,. but only 
a lull ; it is not the settling down of all to quiet : it is a lull which 
betokens to reflecting minds the outburst of a more terrific and 
irresistible storm, before which ail ecclesiastical and all civil bul- 
warks and battlements, the consolidations of centuries, shall bow, 
tremble, and break up. Some smiled at me when I told you, 
three or four years ago, that our church establishments, if pro- 
phecy speaks plainly, were soon to give what has already taken 
place — signs of approaching dissolution. One of the representa- 
tives of the episcopal bench tells the House of Lords that a great 
secession is about to take place, and proposes ecclesiastical des- 
potism as the only resistant. Men distinguished for their earnest- 
ness and zeal, but blinded by a dread superstition, are rushing 
from us into that great apostasy, which has been drunk with the 
blood of saints, and is still bent upon their ruin. All things give 
token that institutions venerable for their age, valued for useful- 
ness, scriptural in their foundations, are about to give way, in 
order that there may emerge from the chaos a church more beau- 
tiful by far, whose foundations are the attributes of God, whose 
altar is the living Lamb, whose towers shall sparkle in the rays 



THE MOSLEM. 267 

of rising and of setting suns throughout millennial days, and in 
perfect peace for ever and ever. 

My dear friends, if ever there was a crisis when a man should 
ask himself, What am I ? and, Where am I to he ? it is the hour 
in which our lot is cast. Tell me, then, not the sect to which 
you belong, but the side to which you cleave. Let me beg of 
you this day to answer, beseeching you to ask your own con- 
sciences in the sight of God, Am I a Christian, or am I not ? not, 
Am I an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, or an Independent ? Any 
of these you may be, and not be a Christian at all. But, is my 
heart renewed ? is my soul reformed ? are my sins forgiven and 
blotted out ? am I a new creature ? do I hate what I once loved ? 
do I now love what I once hated ? do I count all things but loss 
for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus ? and, Do I 
feel it my duty to consecrate every hour that remains to the ser- 
vice of that Master, who died that I might live, and rose again 
that I might be holy and happy for ever ? 

Fair-weather Christianity will not do in the time into which 
we are rushing. That sentimental and tasteful religion, so ele- 
gant because so indifferent, so beautiful to the natural man be- 
cause so cold and statue-like, will not do. Intensity is taking 
possession of and rushing into every thing upon earth. Infidels 
are becoming intensely so ) pagans are becoming intensely so. 
Should Christians alone become more cold, more callous, more 
indifferent ? A new life is proceeding from beneath, and taking 
possession of all Satan's agencies. A new life is descending from 
on high, and taking possession of all God's people; and pious 
men are beginning, more than ever, to feel now that there is 
nothing, comparatively, worth contending for, but the glory of 
Christ, the salvation of souls, the spread of evangelical religion, 
the supremacy of Protestant and scriptural truth. If, then, the 
only rock that will stand is the Rock of ages ; if the only vessel 
that will float securely upon the waters is that ark which God 
himself has prepared ; make sure that your building is on that 
rock ; be sure that you are in that vessel. Do not, my dear 
friends, risk eternity on a probability. And if you should not be 
spared to enter that chaos which is coming, but should be re- 
moved and called to the judgment-seat of God before, in either 



268 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

case it becomes you, and it becomes me, to ask ourselves, What 
will eternity be to us ? No man goes blindfolded to heaven. He 
knows, if he will look into his own conscience, and read it, 
whether lie is going to heaven or not. It is not at all a difficult 
question. A man whose heart is absorbed in his counting-house, 
whose pleasure is the gaming-table, or the follies, the gayety, and 
the amusements of this world ; whose highest excitement is the 
opera or the playhouse ; who has little thought about eternit}^ 
but many thoughts about what he shall eat or drink, and where- 
withal he shall be clothed ) gives no proof of a procession heaven- 
ward. My dear friends, I cannot disguise from you the fact, if 
such be the type of your character, that you are marching on the 
broad road as plainly, as intelligibly, as if your name and your 
doom were written upon the broad blue firmament, and every eye 
could read it, and every ear could hear it. 

But you, on the other hand, who " count all things but loss for 
the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus •" you who are 
resting upon the living Saviour, as your only hope ; whose heart's 
desire and prayer is, that you may know what true life is, that 
you may feel what the power of religion is ; you who bring your 
property, your time, your talents, and your influence, and pray 
that God would consecrate them, and make them all subserve his 
holy will, and the good of your fellow-creatures ; you whose only 
Sanctifier is the Holy Spirit, whose bright hope is the kingdom 
that never can be removed ; — there is no doubt about your destiny. 
You are in the path which may be narrow, which may have many 
obstructions and many difficulties, but it leads you to the presence 
of him "in whose presence is fulness of joy, and at whose right 
hand there are pleasures for evermore." 

My dear friends, do not leave the house of prayer this night 
without choosing whom ye will serve. Be decided. Do not live 
in doubt. Do not have any more suspensive feelings about the 
future, or anxious thoughts about the present, but go now with 
bended knee, and believing heart, and vow solemnly, in the sight 
and hearing of the Searcher of hearts, that, as for you, for the 
rest of your life, you will be the Lord's. 






269 



LECTURE XIX. 

FASTING. 

"And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, 
with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes." — Daniel ix. 3. 

The -whole chapter from which I have selected my text is rich 
with Christian petitions. I know not that there is in the Bible 
a sublimer litany than that which is contained in this chapter, or 
clauses more appropriate as channels of a Christian's prayers, 
than such earnest, beautiful, and yet simple ones as these: — "0 
Lord, hear ; Lord, forgive ; Lord, hearken and do ; defer 
not, for thine own sake, my Grod : for thy city and thy people 
ai'e called by thy name." The whole chapter as we pass along 
will suggest precious thoughts as well as seasonable prescriptions 
for prayer. In this lecture I will introduce my reflections in the 
words which I have now read. " I set my face unto the Lord 
God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sack- 
cloth, and ashes." The whole chapter — as indeed is indicated 
here — is a specimen of the inner life of the prophet Daniel. He 
who was made illustrious for his prophetic wisdom, as is proved 
in previous chapters, was not the less remarkable for his earnest, 
his spiritual and devoted prayers : and perhaps he was so wise as 
a prophet, because he was so devoted as a suppliant. If he had 
prayed less fervently, he had perhaps been favoured with much 
less remarkable and interesting prophecy. It was by prayer he 
drew down the light which he needed for the present, and which 
made the future so luminous to his eyes. It was by prayer that 
he drew down the omnipresence of G-ocl to shelter him in the den 
of lions, and to protect him in the hour of peril from the machi- 
nations of his bitter and relentless enemies. And if we are not 
called upon to prophesy as Daniel prophesied, because the age of 
prophecy has passed away, we are certainly called upon, not only 

23* 



270 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

here, but throughout the whole Bible, to pray as Daniel prayed, 
for the age of prayer still lasts. Our wants are deep, our neces- 
sities as many as his, and, blessed be the name of Him with whom 
we have to do, he is as ready to forgive the sins and hear the 
prayers of the nineteenth century as those of the six hundredth 
year before the birth of our Lord ; for his mercy is now what it 
was then, unchangeable by circumstance, inexhaustible by time : 
" The Lord merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant 
in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving- 
iniquity, transgression, and sin." As far as relates to prophecy, 
the sacred canon is now closed, and therefore we may not expect 
that we shall be gifted with the spirit of prophecy. There is a 
time mentioned in the Bible for every thing — a time for prophecy, 
which ceased with Malachi, under the Old Testament, and with 
John in the New. There is a time to pray which shall only cease 
when there shall be no more wants to be supplied, and there shall 
only be praise for the full and perfect rest of every affection and 
desire. The present age is not the age of uttering prophecy, but 
the age of the fulfilment of prophecy. It is to me one of the 
most interesting studies to trace the outlines of the future as 
sketched in the Bible, and to watch the filling up line upon line 
of that outline which is taking place in the present. What is 
modern history? The translation of ancient prophecy; and the 
longer modern history records its facts, and rolls along its stream, 
the more clear and remarkable is the light that is cast upon an- 
cient prophecy, reminding us that once holy men of God spake as 
they were moved by the Holy Ghost ; and proving in the second 
place, that God reigns in Providence as surely as he ruled in the 
affairs of ancient Babylon. Every day strengthens the conviction 
that God has taken care that the minutest jot and tittle of all that 
he has predicted shall be adequately and certainly performed. But 
while the age of prophecy, as far as it was inspired, has thus 
passed away, the age and need of prayer still lasts. It is an in- 
stinct of the human, an inspiration of the divine, a privilege 
Christians enjoy, a duty all men should bow to. I will tdke an 
opportunity in a subsequent discourse of enlarging upon the na- 
ture and characteristics of prayer. This evening I am anxious to 
call your attention to a subject on which various opinions have 



FASTING. 271 

been, and are now entertained, and on the obligation of which 
various controversies have been held; namely, that which is here 
stated to have accompanied Daniel's prayer, " fasting, sackcloth, 
and ashes. " There is a constant allusion throughout the whole 
of the Old Testament to " fasting, sackcloth, and ashes/' as ac- 
companiments of prayer. There are also frequent allusions to 
fasting scattered throughout the New Testament ; and some are 
strongly convinced, that even as an evangelical duty, they are 
bound to practise it, and believe that those who cannot see that 
it is obligatory upon them in this dispensation, are guilty of vio- 
lating a clear and unequivocal commandment of our blessed Lord. 
I will glance very briefly at this interesting, and, in some degree, 
very practical inquiry. 

In all the works that Christ, that great example, performed, I 
do not find that, except in one special instance, so clearly super- 
natural as to be placed beyond the range of any approximate 
imitation on our part, our blessed Lord ever fasted. The only 
occasion on which he is said to have fasted, was, when he was in 
the wilderness, during a period of forty days, led up by the Spirit 
to be tempted, not for the purpose of fasting, for fasting was an 
incident, not an end. That he felt no hunger during that fast, 
is abundantly plain from the observations contained in Matt. iv. 
2, which records, that when he had fasted forty days and forty 
nights, he "was afterward an hungred;" as if he were not hun- 
gry during the forty days that he fasted, but only after the forty 
days had expired j words which imply, I think, without straining 
the passage, that the fasting of our Lord was not the mere 
abstinence from food, but a complete withdrawal from the more 
public duties of his sublime ministry — a season of solitary, se- 
questered, and isolated, or rather insulated, communion with God. 

But it has been argued, from Matt. vi. 16, that our Lord ex- 
pressly enjoins fasting. He says, for instance, in that passage — 
" Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad 
countenance : for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear 
unto men to fast." Reading this passage, a person may naturally 
infer that our Lord here prescribes fasting as a positive duty ; but 
I do not think that such an inference can be legitimately deduced 
from it; because we find him alluding to various practices that 



272 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

prevailed among the Jews in Lis day, which are not believed by 
any to be obligatory on us. He merely regulated the existing prac- 
tices which we know were then lawful, but have now passed away. 

We have an instance of this in Matt. v. 23, where he says, 
"Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rerneni- 
berest that thy brother hath aught against thee ; leave there thy 
gift before the altar, and go thy way." There was an altar in 
the temple; but this temple and that altar have ceased to exist. 
We know that, by the very nature of the gospel, there is but one 
altar, namely Jesus, who was at once the altar, the sacrifice, and 
the priest. Hence those prescriptions of bringing the gift to the 
altar, and leaving it there, and then going to be reconciled to a 
brother, are not to be considered as a reason for the permanent 
existence of an altar in every church, but the temporary correc- 
tion of a fault committed under that economy which had not then 
wholly passed away. 

It seems to me clear, that when our Lord alluded to fasting, he 
was not enjoining a duty permanently obligatory, but regulating 
and correcting the abuse of an existing practice which he found 
perverted among the people to whom he preached. We have 
another instance of the same thing in Matt, xxiii. 18 : " Whoso- 
ever sweareth by the altar, it is nothing ; but whosoever sweareth 
by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty." And again — Wo unto 
you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye pay tithe of mint 
and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of 
the law." He alludes to practices that then prevailed. He does 
not prescribe tithes as permanent obligations ; but he regulates 
the conduct of the Jews in the then existing duties, and no more. 

Our Lord's remarks on fasting are to be considered in the light 
of the passages I have quoted, not as the inculcation of a perma- 
nent precept obligatory upon us, but simply as a direction in- 
tended to regulate a practice which he found grossly and grievously 
abused. There is not any passage, throughout the whole Old 
Testament Scriptures (and this will startle you if you have not 
noticed it before) that positively and directly enforces fasting, 
however venerated in the feelings or prevalent in the practice of 
the Jews. The only passage that seems capable of this construc- 
tion is Leviticus xvi. 29, where it is said, " This shall be a statute 



FASTING. 273 

for ever unto you : that in the seventh month, on the tenth clay 
of the month, ye shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all." 
But it is not the word "fast" that is used, but the words " afflict 
your souls," which would seem to mean humbling the soul, draw- 
ing near to God, in the exercise of penitence, supplication, and 
prayer. But though it is not a divine prescription, it is yet 
unquestionable, that in almost every instance of fervent piety, and 
especially of public prayer, fasting was observed. In the case of 
Ahab, he humbled himself, and fasted, and prayed, in sackcloth 
and ashes. So in the case of Daniel before us : he fasted in 
sackcloth, and in weeping and with ashes. So the people of 
Nineveh fasted with weeping, and in sackcloth and ashes. So 
Jonah speaks of fasting. But it is worthy of notice, that those 
who quote the passages I have read, only take out of each text so 
much as suits them. If those texts are to be literally observed, 
and are obligatory at all, then there must be, first, prayer; 
secondly, fasting; and thirdly, sackcloth and ashes. The advo- 
cates of the permanent obligation of literal fasting as the ac- 
companiment of prayer, understanding by fasting, abstinence from 
food, take this one practice • but they leave out the other two, 
viz. the wearing of sackcloth, putting ashes on the head, or the 
lying on the ground. 

If you insist that fasting is clearly and literally enjoined in 
this passage, you must allow me to insist that the wearing of 
sackcloth, and putting ashes on the head, are as clearly and as 
literally enjoined. At the same time, I hold that fasting is 
unquestionably referred to in Scripture, and in some respect, I 
believe, in its spirit, and true import, and right use, it is obliga- 
tory upon every true Christian. It does not always mean, as it 
has been generally considered to mean, pure abstinence from 
food, as I think such a passage, for instance, as Joel i. 14 clearly 
shows : " Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the 
elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the 
Lord your God, and cry unto the Lord." This cannot mean 
abstinence from food — this is inadmissible, because the judgment 
under which the people was actually suffering was famine; for it 
is said, "The vine is dried up, and the fig-tree languisheth; the 
pomegranate-tree, the palm-tree also, and the apple-tree, even all 



274 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

the trees of the field, are withered. " And in verses 17,18, "The 
seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the 
barns are broken down ; for the corn is withered. How do the 
beasts .groan ! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they 
have no pasture." In short, there was a literal famine predomi- 
nant throughout the land. This was the actual judgment ; and 
if so, what would be the meaning of prescribing to a people 
starving for hunger, fasting or abstinence from food ? This inter- 
pretation is untenable — it is obviously absurd. So in Joel ii. 12 
— " Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with 
all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with 
mourning." This he explains in verse 13 : "And rend your heart 
and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God : for he 
is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and 
repenteth him of the evil." 

True fasting is not a piece of mere externalism — a mere me- 
chanical act; it is far higher, it is a fasting that the soul under- 
goes, not an outward abstinence which the body alone can feel. 
It consists not in abstaining from food, wearing of sackcloth, and 
sitting in ashes, but in humbling the soul, in bowing the heart, in 
wearing a meek, lowly, and humble spirit. This is fasting worthy 
of the name, this tends to a good purpose. I refer to a passage 
in Matt. ix. 14, which will, I think, confirm the position I have 
already taken : " Then came to him the disciples of John, saying, 
Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not?" 
To which our Lord replies, in the next verse, " Can the children 
of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with 
them ? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be 
taken from them, and then shall they fast." Does he not here 
imply that mourning and fasting are convertible terms, and that 
he that mourns and is truly humbled in heart fasts, in fact, though 
not in appearance, truly in the sight of God, though unseen by 
men ? There is, I say again, no evidence that our blessed Lord 
fasted according, to the rites and practices of the Jews, except on 
one special occasion already referred to, if indeed then, and his 
conduct in it is wholly inimitable by us. But to suppose that by 
observing forty days of abstinence from animal food, while we 
indulge in all the other delicacies of the season, is to imitate our 



FASTING. 275 

blessed Lord, is a thorough, and useless piece of Pharisaic formal- 
ism. " To undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go 
free/' this is the fast that C-od hath chosen, and nothing but this 
is so near an imitation of him "who went about doing good." 
In Matt. xvii. 14-21, we have another allusion to fasting, which 
is worth looking at, in order to enable us more clearly to judge 
of its true meaning : " And when they were come to the multi- 
tude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, 
and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son : for he is a lunatic, and 
sore vexed : for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the 
water. And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not 
cure him. Then Jesus answered and said, faithless and per- 
verse generation, how long shall I be with you ? how long shall I 
suffer you? bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked the 
devil ; and he departed out of him : and the child was cured 
from that very hour. Then same the disciples to Jesus apart, 
and said, "Why could not we cast him out ? And Jesus said unto 
them, Because of your unbelief : for verily I say unto you, If ye 
have faith as a grain of mustard-seed, ye shall say unto this 
mountain, Remove hence to yonder place ; and it shall remove : 
and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit this kind 
goeth not out but by prayer and fasting." What is meant by 
fasting here, to which so much importance seems to be attributed ? 
One thing is perfectly obvious, that faith is the grace requisite in 
order to work the miracle, and that unbelief was the reason why 
they could not cast out the foul spirit. Our Lord does not say 
that their not fasting was the reason why they could not cast him 
out, or that fasting was a practice in the exercise of which they 
could cast him out ; but that faith was wanted, and that unbelief 
was the reason of the failure. Fasting — i. e. insulation from the 
world, and prayer or earnest application to God, were and are, he 
indicates, the means of obtaining this faith. 

But we naturally ask, in considering the meaning of fasting 
and its application, What is the end of fasting ? Not to mortify 
the body, as men seem generally to consider, but to mortify, as 
the Bible tells us, the lusts or the deeds of the body. And it 
seems to me therefore, that whatever may be one's predominating 
moral disease, fasting is the withdrawal of the evil that feeds and 



276 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

facilitates the progress of that disease. And so it appears to me 
that the fasting which our Lord enjoins as the accompaniment of 
prayer must he viewed in the light of the special malady for which 
it is adopted. And what would be fasting most appropriate in 
one case would just he the very reverse and most inappropriate in 
another case. For instance, if you find one whose besetting sin 
is excessive indulgence at the table — one of the most humiliating 
and most discreditable of man's weaknesses — and by this I mean 
not the man who eats to excess at one meal, which surely is a rare 
thing, because an unnatural thing, but the man who dines twice, 
once by anticipation and once actually and truly; whose anxiety 
in the morning is what he shall eat and what he shall drink; who 
thinks much about the enjoyments of the table — not, be it ob- 
served, an uncommon thing in this age of luxury, civilization, 
and social refinement, as it is called — it is that man's duty to fast 
in the sense of eating less, thinking less on such a subject, and 
being more anxious about more important and weightier things, 
and less so about what he shall eat and drink. In this case fast- 
ing is a duty; but it means not abstaining from food, but taking 
the food provided for him, thinking about it less, and about better 
things more. 

But suppose the case of another person who is addicted to an 
excessive use of alcohol in any of its shapes, who parts with his 
senses, his reason, and responsibility, under the excessive excite- 
ment of alcoholic stimulants, what is the cure for such a person ? 
I hope I address no individual here who is the victim of so de- 
based and brutal a habit — a habit that is even rebuked by the 
beasts of the field, and denounced in the most awful tones in the 
word of God; for drunkards, we are told, shall not enter into 
the kingdom of heaven. But what is the cure for such a person ? 
I believe that of human and mechanical means there is no other 
remedy than total abstinence. And why ? Because he at least 
cannot control his use of alcoholic stimulants. But if A uses 
wine as a refreshment or as necessary to him, and uses it without 
in the least passing the bounds of moderation, it would not be 
right to say to A, " You shall abstain totally from the use of it, 
because B cannot touch it without being intoxicated." But you 
should say to A, "Continue in the legitimate and proper use of 



FASTING. 277 

what God has not forbidden, and what science has proved to be 
occasionally useful ;" and we should say to B, who cannot touch 
it without indulging to excess, " It is your duty at once totally to 
abstain from it." And whenever I have met with drunkards, and 
spoken to them, I have always felt that total abstinence is the 
only right prescription in their case. They have lost their self- 
control, and their passion for intoxicating liquors has become, not 
only a moral sin, which makes them odious in the sight of G-od, 
but a physical disease, the only cure for which is total abstinence 
from the pernicious cause that feeds it at all hazards and on every 
occasion. But because this is the fasting which becomes B, who 
cannot touch wine without taking it to excess, it is not the fasting 
which is required in the case of A, who takes it in its place and 
for its proper use. 

Let me take another instance, and you will see how truly fast- 
ing is a usage to be observed in the spirit, and not in the letter. 
Suppose the case of a miser, who spends his days in endeavouring 
only to make and amass money, and his nights in counting the 
gains he has accumulated in the day, or devising fresh schemes 
for increasing his hoard — one, in short, who is the victim of that 
frightful disease which is always gathering and never distributing. 
Suppose some one were to go to him and say, "Lent has arrived; 
you ought during these forty days to fast and abstain from food." 
The miser will tell you, " I stint myself in every meal, and every 
day, in order to save and to accumulate money; and therefore to 
tell me to fast is only to ask me to do what I have been doing 
continually for the last ten or twenty years." Plainly, abstinence 
from food is not the fasting that such a man requires ; but the 
fasting that is proper for him is to take of his hoarded wealth 
and give to that poor starving widow; to take of his abundance 
and clothe those shivering orphans; to distribute garments to the 
naked, and to deal bread to the hungry. To a man like this 
we would say, " Such is the fast that the Lord thy Grod requires 
of thee." 

Let me give another instance to show how we are to observe 
this custom of the prophets in the spirit, and not in the letter. 
Take the case of the victim of incessant and excessive excitement 
— one who goes to the opera three times a week, and to the play* 

24 



278 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

house twice; one who is a large subscriber to the circulating 
library of stimulating romances, the most pernicious reading in 
which the rational mind can indulge. That person lives in con- 
stant excitement, and becomes gradually unfitted for the ordinary 
and proper employments in which a Christian ought to engage. 
What is the fasting proper for such an individual ? Not the eat- 
ing less food, for she eats too little already; for the mind, being 
in a state of excitement, acts upon the body just as if that body 
were in a state of constant fever. The proper prescription for 
such a person is, " Give up your box at the opera — leave off going 
to the playhouse — withdraw your subscription from the library. 
Do not ask continually what is the last new novel ; go and be a 
Sunday-school teacher ; become the secretary of a clothing or be- 
nevolent society, or go out as a district visitor ; engage in works 
of active beneficence, and your mind and body will then acquire 
their proper health, and you will find, not in the literal abstinence 
from food, which is not required, but in loosing the bands of wick- 
edness, undoing the heavy burdens, and letting the oppressed go 
free, the fasting which God requires." 

Such seems to me to be fasting in its spiritual and right sense, 
viewed especially in the light of those cases in our experience 
which it is intended to meet. 

In watching the conduct of the apostles immediately after the 
ascension of our Lord, we find that on some occasions they did 
fast according to the ceremonial introduced by the Jews — namely, 
by abstaining from food ; but it is as plain that they conformed 
to many other Jewish practices that were not injurious to the 
spirit and purity of Christianity, under the rule that Paul lays 
down of becoming all things to all men, in order that he might 
win some. We find St. Paul saying in one passage, " that he was 
in fastings often j" from which some have argued that we also 
should frequently fast. But the apostle, in the very same passage, 
says that he was in perils often, both by land and by sea ; it can- 
not, however, hence be argued that we too should go and seek our 
perils by sea and land. And surely, it never can be argued that 
we ought to imitate the apostle in fasting, unless we imitate him 
•in what he was compelled to undergo, the painful accompaniments 
which he enumerates. It appears from the context that this fast- 



FASTING. 279 

ing was not what he voluntarily practised, but what he was com- 
pelled by his persecutors involuntarily to endure ) it is not there- 
fore a precedent he gives for us to follow, but a suffering which 
lie mentions as assigned to himself. 

Subsequently to the apostle's days we find fasting or abstinence 
from food almost the glory, if I may so call it, of the Nicene 
Church ; and it was specially practised by the Gnostic heretics, 
who believed that man's body was constitutionally the curse of 
bis soul; and that to persecute and scourge and lacerate the body, 
was the only way to emancipate and elevate the loftier nature 
within it. And if you will be at the trouble to read the Roman 
Breviary, or the history of the saints that have been canonized 
by that church, you will find them all notorious for scourging, 
lacerating, and tormenting the body with nettles, spikes, thorns, 
hunger, nakedness, supposing that there was something essentially 
and inherently sinful in the matter, and that only by its annihila- 
tion or destruction, and not by its sanctification, was man to be 
made holy and happy and like God. It is certainly not unworthy 
of being noticed on the present occasion, that those countries in 
which there are the most fast-days, are the very countries in which 
the Sabbath is least of all observed. You will find, if you read 
the Roman Catholic periodical press, the Tablet, and other pub- 
lications of a similar description, the most furious invectives 
against any thing like an approach on the part of our country to 
hallowing the Sabbath, day. And why? Because they have 
raised to a level with the Sabbath the ordinances and the com- 
mandments of men ; and in Roman Catholic countries Good Fri- 
day is far more solemnly observed than the Sabbath-day, and 
saints' days are much more decorously kept than the Lord's day. 
This is just what we might expect. a No man can serve two 
masters." If you try to serve man's tradition and God's command 
equally, the result will be that man's tradition will become su- 
preme and God's commandment will become depressed, because 
God's word is uncongenial to the natural man, for his heart is 
enmity to it, whereas man's tradition ministers to the natural 
man, and is therefore welcome to him. Hence, wherever fast- 
days, instituted by man, have been set up as of equal obligation 
with the Sabbath, ordained of God, we shall find the Sabbatli-day 



280 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

become ultimately nothing, and the fast-day become all. So 
much is this the case, that in the Roman Catholic Catechism used 
at Rome, the third commandment in their arrangement is given 
as " Remember to keep holy the festivals •" " Recordati sanctifi- 
care le feste ;" not a syllable being mentioned about keeping holy 
the Sabbath-day. It is not only practically expunged from the 
observance of the people, it is theoretically banished from the 
catechisms of the church ; the holiday invented by the priest to- 
tally superseding the holy day instituted by Grod. And it is very 
remarkable that in ancient times the men who fasted most — i. e. 
abstained from food and scourged the flesh — instead of beino- the 
most humble, were almost without exception most notorious for 
their violent and ungovernable tempers. To give you an instance : 
In the fourth century of the Christian era, lived two divines, the 
history of each of whom I have read and studied — Jerome, the 
great advocate of fasting and of monkery, and Yigilantius, the 
great opponent of both. The remains of the writings of Yigilan- 
tius are very few, and are only to be found in the volumes of his 
adversary, with whom he carried on a very ardent and lengthened 
controversy. Now, if you will read the productions of Yigilan- 
tius, the opponent of carnal fasting, you will find them full of a 
beautiful and quiet spirit, replete with gentleness and forbearance, 
ever putting the best interpretation on the conduct of his adver- 
sary, and yet firmly contending that fasting, or abstinence from 
food, and total retreat from society were not of divine obligation. 
Jerome, on the other hand, who fasted from food to a severe ex- 
tent, calls his opponent endless nicknames, makes puns of his 
name, and displays always the most bitter and quarrelsome spirit. 
So that the man who never observed a fast-day or a feast-day, but 
ate what was convenient for him, was of a beautiful and Christian 
temper ; while the man that fasted, and went into the desert, and 
clothed himself with rags, and walked barefoot, was notorious for 
the most violent, unsanctified, and ungovernable temper. "We 
learn from this, that it needs grace to sanctify the soul • and that 
whether you pamper or starve the body, or whether you feast or 
fast, you do not thereby necessarily purify the soul. Christianity 
presents to us something nobler and grander than prescriptions 
either for feasting or for fasting. " One believeth/' says the 



FASTING. 281 

apostle, " that lie may eat all things : another, who is weak, 
eateth herbs." Then mark what is his command : — "Let not 
him that eateth despise him that eateth not ; and let not him 
which eateth not judge him that eateth : for God has received 
him. Who art thou that judgest another man's servant ? to his 
own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up : 
for God is able to make him stand. One man esteemeth one clay 
above another : another esteemeth every day alike." Every Eng- 
lish churchman believes that Good Friday is obligatory. If he 
believes it, he ought to observe it. Every Scottish churchman, 
on grounds, perhaps, equally strong, both being extra-scriptural, 
believes it is not of divine origin. Let him not observe it. One 
esteems one day above another. Another esteems every day alike. 
Where God hath not spoken, " let every one be fully persuaded 
in his own mind." 

If men would only recollect this, members of teetotal so- 
cieties would not call men who think it is lawful to taste wine, 
drunkards ; and men who think it is proper to drink wine would 
not call members of teetotal societies fanatics. But each would 
be fully persuaded in his mind — he that eateth eating to the Lord, 
and he that eateth not eating not to the Lord. For the sublime 
and noble character of the gospel is this, " the kingdom of God 
is not meat nor drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in 
the Holy Ghost." " Meat commencleth us not to God j for 
neither if we eat are we the better, neither if we eat not are we 
the worse." "He is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is 
that circumcision which is outward in the flesh ; but he is a Jew, 
who is one inwardly ; and circumcision is that of the heart, in 
the spirit, and not in the letter ; whose praise is not of men, but 
of God." 

What good sense, what loftiness of spirit breathes in the gos- 
pel ! The more we examine it, the more we see how worthy it 
is of God to give it, and how suitable and profitable it is for man 
to accept it. And if we had only a profounder sense of the ne- 
cessity of a new heart, we should have less dispute about meat 
and drink, and holidays, and feast-days, and fast-days, feeling 
that the kingdom of God is not an outward observance, or con- 
ventionalism of any sort, but an inner state, " righteousness, and 

24* 



282 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." We are justified, not by 
fasting, but by the righteousness of Christ alone. Y\ T e are sanctified, 
not by the tormenting of the body, but by the renewal of the heart 
by the Holy Spirit of G-od alone. Make sure that you are accepted 
in God's sight, by resting on the righteousness that Christ accom- 
plished for you ; and that you are sanctified in God's sight by 
being made meet for heaven by the Holy Spirit that is promised 
to you ; and all the discussions that have vexed the world about 
meat and drink, and fast-days, and feast-days, will be crowded 
into very little bulk indeed. And very remarkable it is, that just 
in the ratio in which men lose sight of vital religion, do they be- 
come attached to, and absorbed with days, and forms, and cere- 
monies. There is no clearer sign of a church losing her glory, 
than when the tendency of her ministers is to busy themselves 
much about such matters. And when such a church forgets that 
the inner beauty is the true beauty, the beauty of holiness, and 
begins to increase in inferior beauty by robes borrowed from 
Aaron's faded wardrobe, and the flamens' heathen vestry — trying 
to make a grand impression in the sight of man by splendid robes 
and pompous rites — she is all the while losing those inner and 
hidden excellences in which God delights, and which the spiritual 
man alone can appreciate. If you are satisfied that you are jus- 
tified by the righteousness, and ransomed by the atonement of 
Jesus alone, you will not believe that any rite is essential to your 
acceptance before God. And if you' are thoroughly convinced 
that you are renewed in your heart by the Holy Spirit alone, you 
will not care to discuss much whether you ought to be plunged in 
much water or sprinkled with a little. If you feel deeply the ne- 
cessity of an inner change, by the Spirit and not by the baptism, 
you will find you have something better to think about than a 
fruitless discussion, or an idle controversy. Take a Baptist who 
is a spiritual man, and take an Episcopalian or a Presbyterian 
who is equally so, and they will agree to differ about the quantity 
of water to be used in baptism, because they are practically 
agreed about this one thing — " Except a man be born again of 
water and of the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God." 



283 



LECTURE XX. 



PRAYER. 

" And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, 
with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes." — Daniel ix. 3. 

Prayer was the expression of the spiritual life of Daniel. 
It is not unworthy of our exposition. We cannot overrate the 
importance of prayer, or attach to it too great excellence, short of 
attaching or attributing to it any thing that belongs to God. 
There is a very beautiful definition given of it in a hymn by the 
Moravian poet, James Montgomery. He tells us that — 

" Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, 
Utter'd, or unexpress'd, 
The motion of a hidden fire 
That trembles in the breast. 

" Prayer is the burden of a sigh, 
The falling of a tear, 
The upward glancing of an eye 
When none but God is near. 

"Prayer is the simplest form of speech 
That infant lips can try : 
Prayer the sublimest strains that reach 
The Majesty on high. 

"Prayer is the Christian's vital breath, 
The Christian's native air ; 
His watchword at the gates of death : 
He enters heaven with prayer. 

" Prayer is the contrite sinner's voice, 
Returning from his ways ; 
While angels in their songs rejoice, 
And say, 'Behpld! he prays.' 



il 



284 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

" The saints in prayer appear as one 
In word, and deed, and mind, 
When with, the Father and the Son 
Their fellowship they find. 

"Nor prayer is made on earth alone: 
The Holy Spirit pleads ; 
And Jesus, on the eternal throne, 
For sinners intercedes. 

" Thou, by whom we come to God, 
The life, the truth, the way, 
The path of prayer thyself hast trod 
Lord, teach us how to pray." 

Such is a beautiful definition of prayer, by one who seems to 
have known what its spirit, its aim, and objects are. Life begins 
with prayer, and life ends with prayer. The soul enters on the 
currents of this world with prayer for guidance ; it enters upon 
the margin of the ocean of eternity with prayer also, as its part- 
ing breath. But prayer is often misconceived in all churches, 
and by all parties. I would, therefore, endeavour to detach from 
it those misconceptions which occasionally adhere to it. 

First — The end of prayer, offered in private, in the family, or 
in public, is not to inform God. Many persons pray as if they 
wished to tell God what God does not know. But, surely, no 
greater absurdity than this can be possibly conceived. He knows 
the thought that nestles in the most secret nook and cranny of 
the human heart, as well as the thought that is embodied in the 
newspapers, and trumpeted by a thousand tongues. The still 
small voice, and the deep cry of ten thousand — the want of an 
orphan, and the strong necessity of a kingdom — are equally 
known to him. 

Nor is prayer loud speaking, or much speaking, or any one 
special form whatever. The silent aspiration that struggles for 
egress is heard by God as clearly as the litany that is chanted in 
the grand procession, and enunciated by innumerable tongues. 
God hears the dumb desire, and sees the hidden thought ; and if 
we pray in secret, when no man can see, he that seeth in secret 
will hear us, and reward us openly. 

In the next place, prayer is not prescribed in the Scripture, or 
offered by a true believer, in order to work any change in God. 



PRAYER. 285 

We are not to suppose that by petitioning we can arrest Lis 
purposes, or divert his designs from the great end that he has 
in view, or has previously fixed. No eloquence of petition, no 
fervour of feeling, no perseverance at the throne of grace can 
alter one purpose of the Unchangeable, or change, in the least 
degree, the designs of him who has " no variableness, nor shadow 
of turning/' Therefore, when we read in Scripture such language 
as, "I will not let thee go till thou bless me;" when we read 
that in consequence of prayer God " repented" of what he had 
done; and when we hear of God being moved by prayer — we 
cannot fail to feel that all this is plainly language that, describes 
divine things, accommodated to the imperfections and the weak- 
nesses of human beings. I need not tell you that this idea solves 
and harmonizes those apparently conflicting words that are in 
various parts of Scripture, where God is said to repent, and to 
change — where he is said to have taken a particular course, and 
that something has occurred which has altered it. These are the 
shadows on the dial of time of the incarnation, before that incar- 
nation came; it is God then speaking and acting within the 
limits of humanity, God speaking in imperfect human speech in 
order to be comprehended by dull and imperfect human beings: 
and this very condescension of God is most wickedly made by the 
infidel to be an argument against the inspiration of the very book 
which God has made the record of his condescension. I have no 
doubt that the language of the Bible (perfect as that book is) does 
not fully answer to the great ideas of which it is the vehicle. 
Infinite ideas cannot be embodied in finite vehicles ; and there- 
fore, instead of the expressions of the Bible being exaggerated, 
as some persons suppose, I believe that when the divine penmen 
selected the most expressive language in order to convey the 
truths of God, even that strong language breaks down and fails 
beneath the magnificence and splendour of the thoughts of which 
it is made the vehicle. Even the Bible then, with all its glory, 
is but a dim and shadowy manifestation of that brightness which 
the unpurged human eye cannot bear to look upon in its intensity. 
We are not, therefore, to suppose that any thing we pray for can 
work the least change in God ; prayer is needful for us, not for 
God ; it was instituted, not for his advantage, but for our salva- 



286 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

tion, comfort, and convenience ; it is the expression of our homage, 
the declaration of our dependence, the cry of our necessities, a 
mighty instrument which he has put into our hands, the use of 
which he has promised to bless. 

In the next place, you must not associate with prayer any idea 
of atonement or expiation. By the Romish Church, and those 
who have imbibed the spirit and imitate the ways of that church, 
prayer is regarded as a penance. Hence, in the Roman Catholic 
catechism, you will find that one of the penances that the priest 
assigns to people who have confessed their sins is prayer ; the 
priest tells them, after they have confessed, that they are to re- 
peat so many Pater Nosters and so many Ave Marias, each and 
all of which are regarded and defined in their catechisms to be 
expiatory. And I must say that those Protestant parents have 
not got rid of their ancient Popish affinities who say to a child, 
" You have conducted yourself very badly at church ; you must 
go home and learn a collect -," or, "You have done very wrong; 
you must go and learn a psalm." My dear friends, never pre- 
scribe the sanctuary, the psalm, the Bible, prayer, as a punish- 
ment ; always teach your children4hat each is a privilege ; and 
if your child has acted wrongly, say, "You shall not go to church 
to-day;" or, "You shall not read the Bible to-day ; ;; or, "You 
shall not have that spiritual privilege to-day which you always 
have had ;" and you will then act in the true spirit of Protestant 
Christianity. But to teach the poor child to regard the bended 
knee and the uplifted heart, and the utterance " Our Father," as 
a punishment — to teach the poor child to regard the Psalms of 
David, which are to be the bases of the songs of heaven, as a 
penance and a punishment, is worse than Popery ; it is teaching 
the child lessons in its earliest moments, which will become so 
inveterate by habit, that they will not be eradicated even to the 
last day of its existence. Prayer is not an expiation, it is not a 
penance, it is not to be taught and impressed as such ; it is, on 
the contrary, in every sense, a ^privilege. To attach to prayer 
any thing expiatory, is to rob Christ of his prerogative, and to at- 
tribute to the ordinance the glory that belongs to the Lord of the 
ordinance. Always carry with you this idea — that there is no 
expiatory atonement anywhere in the universe but in the blood 



PRATER. 287 

of Jesns. In tears shed like rain, in torture endured as martyrs 
only endure it, there is nothing, and can be nothing expiatory ; 
and the remark, therefore, which you will occasionally hear of 
some one who has been long ill, " Poor man, he has suffered 
enough for his sins, he has endured enough, and has made ample 
atonement for his sins," is but heathen or Romish, unscriptural, 
unprotestant, unspiritual language. Not only is there nothing 
atoning in any thing man can suffer, but there is no necessity for 
any thing atoning being in it. Does not the blood of Christ 
cleanse from all sin? Does not the righteousness of Christ en- 
title to all glory ? We need no additional expiatory element on 
the one hand, and we need no additional perfect righteousness on 
the other; we are complete in Christ, our priest, our prophet, 
and our king. 

This leads me to another remark. I meet sometimes with ex- 
cellent Christian persons who say they give up all hope, believing 
that G-od does not hear them; "because," they say, "our prayers 
are so mixed with wandering and sinful thoughts, and are so im- 
perfect, that we cannot pray aright." My dear friends, that idea 
seems to imply a lingering notion that your prayers are expiatory, 
or that your prayers are a title to heaven. Why, if you could 
pray aright, it would imply that you could live aright, and that 
you needed no sacrifice, nor Saviour, nor atonement; that you 
are, in short, innocent and unfallen beings. It is perfectly true 
that you cannot think aright, nor speak aright, nor pray aright, 
nor live aright; and, instead of saying, "I pray so badly that I 
will cease to pray," you ought to pray and pray still for the for- 
giveness of your prayers through the blood of Christ Jesus which 
cleanseth from all sins. 

In the next place, when we pray, it is not only not to make 
any expiation, but we must not pray, to use the definition of our 
Lord, in order " to be seen of men." The Pharisees of old prayed 
in the corners of the streets ; and the Romanists of recent times 
pray upon the pavements of cathedrals, and, in their homes, in 
what they call " oratories," — places, nooks consecrated and set 
apart specially for this purpose. But you must never forget that 
there is no one spot, or hill, or dale, or street, or cathedral pave- 
ment, or chapel floor, anywhere, that has one particle of more 



\ 



288 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

essential hallowedness or holiness in the sight of God than 
another. It is quite right and decent to set apart places for pub- 
lic worship, but to suppose that a prayer will be heard on a 
cathedral pavement which cannot be heard on a kitchen floor, is 
to forget by whom and through what prayers are heard — the per- 
fect intercession of the Son of God. Hence I regard the practice 
introduced into the diocese of Exeter, of having " oratories'' in 
private dwellings, because it is said the drawing-room floor, or 
the dining-room floor is not fit to kneel on, and therefore it is not 
right to have family worship there, but in a little nook cut off 
from the rest and consecrated, and that there alone you must 
pray, as the first inroad upon- that noble and precious thing, 
family worship. No one must submit to it; the thought, the 
prayer that comes from an humble heart, rises to God swifter 
than angels' wings can fly, and is heard by the ear of Jehovah 
louder than the seven thunders themselves. The only priesthood 
we need below is the priesthood of the affections ; the only chan- 
cel that is holy is the chancel of an humble and broken heart ; 
the only fald-stool is the bended heart, not necessarily the bowed 
knee, and such prayer, offered in such circumstances, God will 
hear. Many a man says prayers who never prays at all ; and 
many a man rarely says prayers who prays continually. It is 
not the Liturgy or Litany, however beautiful or eloquent; it is not 
the loud utterance, however fervent ; but it is the thought that 
flies inaudible, like lightning, from the heart, penetrates the clouds, 
and conveys the creature's wants to a Creator's fulness, and draws 
down benedictions larger than tongue can tell or heart can conceive. 
Prayer, in the next place, is not to be an excuse or apology for 
the neglect of duties. We must not say, "I cannot attend to the 
payment of my debts, because I am too much engaged in pray- 
ing." You must not say, " I must give up certain duties that 
are plain and obvious, because I must devote a certain time to 
prayers that are dutiful and right." Prayer is not to be a sub- 
stitute for duty, but the inspiration of duty, and the strongest in- 
centive to its effective discharge. Prayer is to lead to pains- 
taking, and pains-taking is to lead to prayer. Pie that prays best 
will labour most, and he that labours in the right spirit will pray 
in the right spirit also. 



PRAYER. 289 

Again, prayer is not an exercise suited to a great crisis, to be 
laid aside and afterward to be used on the recurrence of another 
crisis. When a shipwreck has been threatened, I have seen per- 
sons begin to pray who never prayed before. In the season of 
pestilence, or famine, or war, or battle, or disorganization, or re- 
volution, many will begin to pray, and you would suppose that 
they were rapt saints and seraphs in such circumstances ; but if 
the famine passes away, if the war ceases, if the pestilence is re- 
moved, and if you should say to such persons, " We prayed for 
the removal of these things, and they are gone ; is not this an 
answer to our prayers V they would laugh you to scorn for such 
foolery, fanaticism, and enthusiasm, showing that their prayer was 
the same to them as the ringing of bells is to Koman Catholics, 
who suppose that when there is lightning the ringing of conse- 
crated bells will avert it, and that the muttering of Pater Nosters 
will keep away the judgment that God justly sends for their sins. 
We are to pray, my dear friends, at all times, in minute things 
and in mighty things — in all time of our tribulation, in all time 
of our wealth, in the hour of death, and until our footsteps are 
heard in our approach to the judgment throne. We are to pray 
in the high-roads of public life and in the hidden and sequestered 
by-paths of individual experience ; we are to pray when we go 
out, and when we come in : little things are the hinges of great 
results, and he who does not pray that G-od would guide him in 
the little things has no right to expect that God will bless him in 
great things. A Christian feels that his daily bread has no bless- 
ing till he has asked it, that his home has no consecration till he 
has sought it, and that his labours can have no increase till God's 
blessing has rested upon them. And this reminds me to state, 
that every head of a family should have family prayer. If you 
look at this exercise in the lowest light, you must see that it 
brings before a whole house the idea of God • it presents before 
each member thoughts of eternity ; and the very fact that you 
kneel and pray, and give utterance to your wants, teaches every 
one, from the menial domestic to the head of the house, to feel 
that there is a God, a judgment-seat, an eternity, a soul to be 
saved ; and when you recollect how in this world we are apt to 
tread down and trample in the dust such solemn thoughts, you 

25 



290 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

will feel how important it is that we should try to recruit, to re- 
vive, and resuscitate them as often as we can. But more than 
all this, when we pray as a family, we seek family blessings, and 
God has said that the families who do not call upon him he will 
not bless. Many of your present aches and ills, and domestic 
trials and troubles, may be to lead you to this ; and when you 
have been brought to acknowledge God as a family, then see if 
the sunshine of his countenance will not lighten upon you, and 
the blessing that maketh rich abundantly descend on you. 

I have thus shown you what prayer should not be; let me 
endeavour briefly, in the space that remains, to show you what it 
should be. 

In the first place, prayer should be addressed unto God, as our 
Father. When we pray (and I wish all specially to notice this) 
we do not come before God as criminals overwhelmed by the ter- 
rors of the wrath of a judge, but as sons — sinful and erring sons, 
it may be — asking the blessing of a Father. Recollect that the 
great idea of the gospel — the idea that runs through it all, that 
gives its tone, its colouring to it all' — is the idea of God as our 
Father ; and every time we pray to him, we pray not as to an 
angry judge, but as to our Father. Do not forget this. Go to 
God as sons into the presence of a Father, never as criminals to 
deal with the wrath of a judge. The very first utterance is, 
Abba, Father ; the very first inspiration of the Holy Spirit given 
to us is, that God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son, crying in 
our hearts, "Abba, Father." And our Lord appeals to us — "If 
ye [earthly fathers, with all your faults and imperfections] know 
how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more will 
your Father which is in heaven give the Holy Spirit to them that 
ask him V But while we are to pray to God as a Father, we are 
to pray to no creature on this side of God. Such, as I have told 
you, is my idea of the grandeur of man's soul, that there is no- 
thing that I would bring that soul into close contact with in reli- 
gion short of God himself. No creature must come between me 
and God, not the highest angel or archangel ; it is my privilege 
to go to my Father, and to say to him, in the spirit of adoption, 
" Our Father, which art in heaven." 

But prayer is to be offered, not only to our Father, but it is to 



PRAYER. 291 

be offered in the name and through the mediation of Christ. 
Christ is the way to the Father, and the Father's way to us; his 
name is not a mere musical cadence to a prayer, or a customary 
close to a collect, but it is to be the Alpha of our prayer, and its 
Omega too ; he is to be the substance of every prayer, the com- 
mencement and the end of every prayer ; and it is because of 
what he has done, that we can see a channel by which our pray- 
ers shall rise to Deity, and the blessing of Deity shall descend 
into the heart of humanity. It is, then, in the name of Christ 
we must pray. 

But we are also told that we are to pray in the strength and by 
the guidance of the Holy Spirit of God. No man persists long 
in seeking for a blessing who does not give evidence, by that per- 
sistency, that the Holy Spirit has taught him to pray for it. We 
all know very well that water rises to the level from which it de- 
scended ; it is so with prayer ; the prayer only that God has 
inspired will reach to God ; we are told, therefore, that the Spirit 
of God pleads and intercedes within us with groanings that can- 
not be uttered. What a thought is this, and what an evidence 
of the helplessness of man ! We need God to pray to, God to 
pray through, and God to pray in. Christ pleading without us, 
the Spirit pleading within us, sustained safely is the creature in 
the everlasting arms. How safe is that man whose God is our 
God ; how sure is that prayer of an answer which is placed in the 
golden censer of a Saviour's merits, and kindled by the presence 
of that Saviour's Spirit ! You may recollect, that in the ancient 
economy, it was not only sin to offer upon a wrong altar, but it 
was no less so to offer incense kindled from strange fire. Now 
the right altar is Christ, the true fire is the Holy Spirit; it is his 
fire that kindles the cold heart — it is his inspiration that gives 
eloquence to the stammering lips — it is his presence that gives 
efficacy and expression to the inmost thoughts and desires of our 
hearts. It is thus, then, we pray to God the Father, in the name 
of Christ the Son, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And 
so praying, we are to pray for every thing. We forfeited all by 
sin ; and if we have any thing, we have it hj grace. Is it not a 
very important thought, and yet a thought that we rarely take 
hold off — that there is not one blessing, not one happy pulse in 



292 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

the bounding heart, not one inspiration of cold air, not a glass of 
cold water, not a sensation of health or joy in the human frame, 
that are not as much the purchase of a Saviour's blood as the 
crown of glory that will be bestowed upon his saints ? We for- 
feited all when we fell : and if we have aught that is good, holy, 
happy, beneficent, it is by grace, and by grace alone. Therefore, 
my dear friends, let us recognise the fountain of these things ; let 
us feel, that if we have no spiritual mercies yet for which we can 
thank God, we have so many temporal mercies, that the man 
whose lips are dumb in prayer, has a heart that must be cold and 
obdurate indeed. 

And when we pray for additional blesssings — grace and glory — 
we are to pray for"" them earnestly — that is, from the heart, sin- 
cerely, truly, under a deep consciousness that we want them. Do 
not express in prayer more than you feel, but pray that you may 
feel deeply what you want, and so pray. If a person is under 
deep wants, and wishes from any one that which will satisfy those 
wants, how simple is the language he uses ! Nothing, therefore, 
is to my mind so offensive as very splendid language in prayer — 
as very fine phrases, exquisitely turned sentences, beautiful idioms, 
rich similes, and fine eloquence ; — all this in prayer is like pop- 
pies in a cornfield, injurious, mischievous, bad. Whenever a 
person, therefore, prays earnestly, and truly, his prayer will be 
simple, it will be short, it will be to the purpose. Almost every 
prayer in the Bible is a short prayer. Long prayers and repeti- 
tions do not indicate earnestness ; it is the deep simple cry of a 
humble, needy, destitute heart that God hears, when offered 
through the name and the merits of Christ Jesus. I look upon 
the General Confession of the Church of England as a perfect 
model in this respect : it is exquisitely simple, and evidently bor- 
rowed from and moulded upon the model of the Lord's Prayer. 
There is scarcely a word in it that is not a monosyllable : " We 
have done those things which we ought not to have done, and we 
have left undone those things which we ought to have done." 
How simple, how intelligible, how much to the purpose ! and 
what a contrast to those splendid extemporaneous prayers we are 
sometimes doomed to listen to ! Let us pray in spirit, and pray 
in truth, and we shall pray simply, and to the purpose — simple 



PRAYER. 293 

words, sublime petitions. So our Lord taught his disciples, and 
so he will teach us to pray. 

We are to pray intensely and earnestly. I have been looking 
over the Bible for instances of prayer. I cannot quote them all 
now ; but I have noticed how earnest and intense were the peti- 
tions, not only of Daniel, but of all God's most distinguished 
saints. "If thou wilt not forgive their sins/' said Moses, "blot 
me, I pray thee, out of thy book." What earnestness is that ! 
Again, St. Paul said, " I could wish I were accursed from Christ 
for my brethren and my kinsmen according to the flesh." What 
earnestness is there ! I remember a parallel case — that of John 
Knox, the celebrated reformer, who has been blamed and carica- 
tured, just as it now seems to be the fashion with respect to Cal- 
vin, of whom all sorts of falsehoods and misrepresentations are 
circulated. The prayer that John Knox constantly offered was, 
"0 Lord, give me Scotland, or I shall die;" — meaning by that, 
" Let me see the gospel spread in it, let Protestantism prevail in 
it, let Popery be cast out from it, or I shall die." I quote the 
prayer to indicate the intensity of the feeling that was condensed 
into that great man's heart, when he prayed for such a blessing, 
and for a land at that time the most darkened and benighted amid 
all the nations of the earth. I may refer to Knox's own prayers, 
which are left to us, as specimens of great and beautiful sublimity 
of thought. I do not think, however, (this is my own judgment, 
whether you concur with me or not, for the Bible is silent upon 
such subjects,) that the repetition of the same words every Sun- 
day, is always expedient. Have you not noticed, that the most 
exquisite song, if sung every day, begins to pall ? It does seem 
to be the higher philosophy, and not the less Christianity, that the 
same thoughts should be in varied language, in this dispensation 
at least, lest men should be found repeating the words, like those 
of a beautiful song, and losing meanwhile the undercurrent of 
thought, which alone is precious and worthy. 

We are to pray also for all good things ; and among other good 
things we are to pray for temporal blessings. These, however, 
we are to pray for with a certain measure of reserve. The mea- 
sure of our temporal blessings is, " Give us this day our daily 
bread j" the condition of our temporal blessings is, " Thy will be 

25* 



291 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

done, as in heaven, so on earth/' "We are taught not to ask 
blessings for to-morrow, but for to-day only. If Christians lived 
as Christians profess to pray, how happy should we be ! But 
alas, alas ! man — poor inconsistent man — is constantly fearing 
dangers that may happen to-morrow, and constantly praying for 
blessings that he may never need to-morrow ; showing the incon- 
sistency of his character, and thereby the grandeur and the truth 
of that petition which he has been taught : " Give us this clay 
our daily bread. " " Seek first the kingdom of God and his 
righteousness, and all other things shall be added unto you." 
When you pray for temporal blessings, God may not give you 
the very temporal blessing you ask, but he will give you that 
which will remove the want that you feel. If you ask riches, he 
may withhold them, because riches might be a curse to you; but 
God will give you contentment, which is sweeter far. When 
Paul felt keenly some thorn in the flesh, he prayed that it might 
be removed. God said he would not remove the thorn, but he 
would still answer the prayer by doing what was better — " My 
grace shall be sufficient for you." When you are on a sick-becl, 
and pray for health, God may not give you health ; such health 
may lead you to sin ; but he will give you grace to bear your 
sickness, and the inward man shall be renewed day by day. And 
oh ! what a consolation is it to know that we can pillow our 
aching heads upon the bosom of Him who has promised that he 
will supply all our wants, and do exceeding abundantly above ail 
that we can either ask or think. 

But, although we ask for temporal blessings, we are to ask 
specially and primarily for spiritual blessings ; and let me tell 
you how you are to ask for them. Every promise in the Bible 
is meant to be, if you will allow the expression — although coarse, 
it is expressive — the "raw material" of prayer. The promises 
are given us to be turned into prayer; and you will need no 
liturgy, and feel the want of no litany, if you will just open the 
psalms, and wherever God gives a promise, turn that promise into 
a prayer, and beg that God will fulfil it in your experience. The 
promises come from the skies; the believer accepts them, and 
sends them back again in the shape of prayers ; promise comes 
down again as performance, and prayer as a blessing; and the 



PRAYER. 295 

hearts of them that accepted the one and embodied the other re- 
joice with joy unutterable and full of glory. Hence, there is 
not one blessing that a sinner needs for eternity that you are not 
warranted to ask, and to ask boldly, as a son from a father, in 
the name of Christ Jesus. Do you need a new heart ? do you 
need joy? do you need peace ? Whatever you need, if God has 
promised it — that you may ask. But you say, " Is there no risk 
of presumption ?" I answer, presumption is asking any thing 
that God has not promised; but your asking for grace, or any 
thing that God has promised, is not presumption. Where the 
queen to command you to ask the highest dignity in the realm, 
it would be no humility to say, " It is too great for me to ask •/' 
it would be the greatest humility, loyalty, and courtesy that you 
could show were you instantly to ask it. When a celebrated 
French king once showed the infidel philosopher Hume into his 
carriage, the latter at once leaped in, on which his majesty re- 
marked, " That's the most accomplished man living." Hume 
showed his greatest reverence for the monarch, by doing what 
royalty commanded. And if we so treat the kings of this world, 
whose crowns are crumbling into dust, surely if the Prince of 
the kings of the earth say, "Seek, and ye shall find; ask, and 
ye shall obtain; knock, and it shall be opened unto you," it 
must be the highest humility to ask the greatest blessings, and it 
must be the highest pride to ask any thing less. 

To the complaint often expressed by many Christians, "We 
have asked, but God has not answered/' I give this very short 
reply : God says he will give, but he does not say how long you 
must pray, or how often you must ask. When you are ill, and 
apply to a physician, if that physician promises you a cure, and 
gives you certain prescriptions, you do not run away from him 
and say, " All his promise is deception/' but you faithfully take 
the prescription he gives you, and wait the result. It is so with 
God: God says he will answer you, but he bids you pray; and 
if you go on using the prescription, God himself has pledged his 
veracity that you shall have an answer exceeding abundantly 
above all you can ask or think. God requires of you unlimited 
confidence ; give him that confidence, cast your care on him, wait 
patiently on him, and he will bring his promises to pass. But 



296 PROPHETIC STUDIES. . 

you say, your sorrow continues, and increases while you pray. 
The sorrow you feel, or the calamity you are the subject of, may 
be the medicine, not the disease. You do not want the medicine 
to be withdrawn, you only want the disease to be cured. 

Especially is all this true of intercessory prayer. If you have 
a friend, a son, a daughter, a husband, a wife, a relative, who are 
not what they should be, and whom you wish to be what God 
would have them to be, continue to pray for them, and as sure as 
you do pray, so sure that prayer will be, sooner or later, answered. 
Many a prayer offered up by them that are gone is doing its work 
in the hearts of those who tread reverently upon their ashes. 
You may be gathered to the grave before the blessing you have 
prayed for descends upon a near and a dear one, but fall it will ; 
God has pledged himself to it, and he will most assuredly fulfil 
his pledge. 

But you are to pray for blessings not only upon your friends 
and your relatives, but even upon your foes. The way to destroy 
an enemy is to love him, and the way to destroy your enmity to 
him is to pray for him. Whenever there is any one toward 
whom you feel most uncomfortably, go home and pray for him, 
and all your uncomfortable feeling will depart. If this were so — 
if one were praying for another, and each for all, the world would 
have innumerable benefactors, men who prayed for others, the 
results of whose prayers many might be reaping, while they 
knew not the names even of those that tittered them. Let us 
pray for all men, for kings and all that are in authority, for our 
friends that they may be friends of God, for our enemies that 
they may be forgiven, for all flesh that thej may see and taste 
the great salvation of our God. And as an encouragement to 
such prayer, let me read to you — and with it I will close — that 
beautiful specimen which occurs in the history of Abraham. God 
had resolved, we are told, to destroy Sodom. " And Abraham 
drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with 
the wicked ? Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the 
city : wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty 
righteous that are therein ? And the Lord said, If I find in 
Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then will I spare all the 
place for their sakes. And Abraham answered and said, Behold 



PRAYER. 297 

now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am 
but dust and ashes : [what humility, and yet what boldness !] 
Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous : wilt 
thou destroy all the city for lack of five ? And he said, If I fiud 
there forty and five, I will not destroy it. And he spake unto 
him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found 
there. And he said, I will not do it for forty's sake. And he 
said unto him, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak : 
Peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I 
will not do it if I find thirty there. And he said, Behold now, I 
have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord : Peradventure 
there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I will not de- 
stroy it for twenty's sake. And he said, Oh let not the Lord be 
angry, and I will speak yet but this once : Peradventure ten 
shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten's 
sake. And the Lord went his way, as soon as he had left com- 
muning with Abraham : and Abraham returned unto his place.''* 
Abraham left off praying before God left off giving; 







298 



LECTURE XXL 



SIN, CONFESSION, AND ABSOLUTION. 

"And I prayed unto the Lord my God, and made my confession, and said, 

Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them 
that love him, and to them that keep his commandments." — Daniel is. 4. 

In my first remarks on the chapter a portion of which I have 
read, I endeavoured to show what was the nature of fasting, and 
ashes, and sackcloth, and how far obligatory on us were these 
accompaniments of prayer which Daniel here presented. It is 
said that he " prayed with fasting, with sackloth, and with ashes." 

1 showed that these were temporary ceremonies in their material 
form, while they expressed permanent feelings of the heart in 
the dispensation in which it is our privilege to live; that the 
fasting required now has rather a relation to the heart than to the 
body; that the sackcloth and the ashes are lowliness and humility 
of soul, and that, where these are accompanied by faith and trust 
in the atonement of Jesus, there there is the spirit that presents 
acceptable prayer to Grod, and on which the blessing pledged and 
promised will descend. In my next discourse I endeavoured to 
explain the nature of prayer; its divisions, its obligations, and 
its general characteristics. In my remarks this evening I will 
call your attention to three specific topics that are touched upon 
in the course of the prayer which I have now read : first, sin, as 
the root and cause of all the miseries we suffer ; next, the con- 
fession of sin, which Daniel here exhibited ; and, thirdly, the for- 
giveness of sin by him to whom the prayer is addressed; "the 
Lord our Grocl," to whom " belong mercies and forgiveness, though 
we have rebelled against him." 

We have, first of all, then, in this chapter, the acknowledg- 
ment of sin ; Daniel owning, throughout the whole passage, that 
whatever evils had fallen upon them, their princes, and their 



SIN, CONFESSION, AND ABSOLUTION. 299 

fathers, their rulers, and all the people of the land, were to be 
traced to one prolific and hitter root, and that root, sin. The 
word is easily uttered; hut eternity itself will not he able to 
exhaust its' terrible significance. Sin it was that 

" Brought death into the world, and all our wo !" 

Sin was not made by God. Wherever it came from, it came not 
from the creative hand of our God ; it was no original portion of 
the creation of God; it was no part or parcel of the original 
furniture which garnished and beautified the earth as it came from 
the hand of God. It is a foul stain that has fallen upon the 
earth. Whence it came originally, the Bible does not tell us ; 
and as we are unable to explain its origin and the cause of its in- 
troduction as a fact, philosophers and skeptics, who either repudi- 
ate it or explain it away, are equally unable to solve the difficulty, 
and say why, and wherefore, and how, sin crept into the world, 
and originated all the disaster and wreck and misery which con- 
fessedly flow from it. All that we know is, that God is not the 
author of it ; and he cannot be charged in any shape or sense 
with the responsibility of its existence. God made man holy; he 
made creation happy; he pronounced them both to be "very 
good;" and, whatever be the source of sin, it is not of God, nor 
from God, nor is he, in his government, in any manner what- 
ever, chargeable with its existence or its consequences. 

Sin, in looking at it as the source of evil, may be said, in the 
first place, to be wrong done to one's own self. No man sins 
without suffering in the act of his sin, and suffering afterward 
terrible and enduring consequences that follow that act. Never 
can sin, as a fact in the past, be utterly annihilated. Its dark 
shadow will remain suspended over your recollections to the last; 
your remembrance of it will not cease till grace is swallowed up 
in glory. Forgiven it may be; forgotten by you, as a fact, your 
memory will never suffer it to be. Sin, I have said, is wrong 
clone to one's own self. It creates terrible presentiments which 
you yourselves are all conscious of. There is no feeling in the 
human heart more rending, more insufferable for its agony, than 
the terrible feeling of remorse. We know not fully what it is in 
this world, because it is benumbed, soothed, repressed by a thou- 



300 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

sand circumstantial applications round us. But when these are 
occasionally withdrawn, and the conscience is left to its gnawings, 
I believe that we have in such remorse the first sensations of the 
torment of the worm that never dies, and of the fire that shall 
never be quenched. But I do not now refer to sin as the source 
of future misery; I look at it as the source of misery now: a 
sinner is an unhappy man — unhappy when he sins ; never is the 
right hand lifted up to sin unless amid the lightnings of con- 
viction and remonstrance. Never does a man do what his con- 
science declares to be wrong without feeling conflict, misery, discord, 
which are only the dawn of that future hell where sin is left to 
its full sway, and its victim is consigned to all its' terrible results. 

Sin is wrong done, specially, I observe, to man's conscience. 
Man's conscience may be seared, benumbed, stupefied, by the 
influence of sin ; but it never sleeps the sleep of entire death in 
this world. There are times when conscience will awake, and 
when all the opiates of this world utterly fail to hush it. There 
are moments of sequestration from the world, when some mys- 
terious light will flash upon the conscience, resplendent and vivid 
as the lightning, in which you read the sins you have done, and 
see the retribution that of necessity cleaves to them; and hard 
as you may try to stupefy, to still, and to allay that conscience, 
you will not succeed. It will rise from its temporary lull, and 
reason audibly, till the wounded spirit can no longer bear it, " of 
righteousness, and temperance, and judgment to come." It is 
related in Scripture, that when Herod, who was a Sadducee, and 
who therefore disbelieved the resurrection of the dead and the 
immortality of the soul, heard that Jesus was performing great 
miracles, instantly his conscience smote him with the recollection 
he had murdered John, and that conscience, stronger than his 
reason, said, " It is John/' and, stronger than his creed, it added, 
"who is risen from the dead/' and, with forebodings which he 
could not quell, made him feel that he was come to avenge the 
foul murder of which he, Herod, had been guilty. So true is it 
that conscience is more eloquent than speech, more powerful than 
armies ; monarchs have felt it on their thrones, and skeptics have 
believed in spite of their atheistical convictions. 

Sin is wrong clone to the affections. Every one knows, and it 



SIN, CONFESSION, AND ABSOLUTION. 301 

is well that we should know, that the moment you introduce sin 
into the affections of a man, in thought, in deed, or in word, 
that moment there follows disorder, confusion, suffering. Who 
knows not the fury of resentment, the corroding pain of a spirit 
of revenge ? Who is not aware what a hardening thing is ava- 
rice, wherever it is cherished and entertained? Few there are 
who have not learned by painful personal experience, that the 
introduction of sin into the circle of the affections of the heart 
is the introduction of a foul demon who there lords it over you, 
and torments you with a scorpion sceptre which you can neither 
get rid of nor overcome, except by the forgiving blood of the 
cross, and the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit of God. 

Sin, too — this sin of which I am speaking — is an injury done 
to reason. Not that the sinner does not reason : avarice calcu- 
lates its gains; ambition lays its plans; sensuality arranges its 
prospective indulgences; dishonesty schemes and plunders most 
cleverly; and very bad men may be very clever men; — yet sin is 
wrong done to reason. That noble faculty, which was made to 
trace and teach the footsteps of God, is degraded, debased, and 
made a mere mercenary calculating machine for sensuality, ava- 
rice, ambition, dishonesty, and crime. Sin is degradation and 
wrong done to reason. 

Sin is injury done to the soul ! What sickness and pain are 
to the body — what loss is to the estate — what dishonour is to the 
name — these, and more than these — and felt more intensely than 
these, sin is to the soul. 

Sin is wrong done to all society : it is the ceaseless epidemic 
that is never stayed; it is the desolating plague for which there 
is no earthly cure. What explains the convulsions of the earth, 
the lawsuits, the quarrels, the disputes, the murders, the dis- 
honesty, by which society in some of its sections is stained ? It 
is the contention of pride, the corroding of envy, the coldness 
of distrust, the exactions of selfishness, the outbreaks of pas- 
sion. Sin is the fever, the disease that tears, and wears, and 
wastes it. 
f^ And sin, lastly, is hateful to God. It is the only thing in the 
£ whole universe that God hates. Not the sinner, but his sin does 
I he hate. God so loved the sinner, that he gave his only begot- 
^ 26 



302 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

ten Son that that sinner might be saved. God so hates sin, that 
"\ rather than sin should triumph, he gave the blood of the incar- 
M nate Deity, and so washed it away. 

And this sin, my dear friends, in one word, is our sin : the sin 
we were born in — nursed in; the sin that cleaves to all man- 
kind; which taints our purest thoughts, which is the alloy in 
our holiest feelings. The sin that offends God, and is the con- 
ductor of his lightnings to the earth, is our sin. There is no 
man who does not feel that it is so. There is no man that will 
not say, "I have sinned." There is no memory that does not 
recollect some dark shadow that has swept over it; no conscience 
that has not some painful quivering in it; no biography that has 
not in its pages something it has done which it feels it should 
not have done, something it has left undone which it feels that 
it ought to have done; and there are few that feel not in their 
best moments that there is no good in them. 
/** Such, then, in few words, is sin ; and such is the relationship 
of sin to the reason, the affections, the heart, the conscience, so- 
ciety. It is the only thing that God hates; it is the only thing 
that makes hell. I believe hell does not consist of literal flame 
any more than of a literal worm. It consists of far more terrible 
agony than that; the worm that never dies, is the conscience; 

/the fire that is never quenched, is sin. Let there be a company 
of drunkards, thieves, ambitious men, envious, cruel, sanguinary 
men — let them all be cast together, let all restraints and restric- 
tions be withdrawn, and there will originate and burn there a 
hell of the most terrific kind; there will be passions, and no 
means to indulge them; thirst, and no supply for it; ambition, 
and no thrones to gratify it. I do not believe we have any thing 
like an adequate appreciation of what sin is. It is lightly com- 
mitted; it is lightly done; but years upon years do not exhaust 
it. But blessed be God, terrible as it is, there is no sin, though 
\ it be of scarlet dye and of crimson hue, that may not be washed 
\ away in that precious blood "that cleanseth from all sin." 
\^ But, in the next place, Daniel not only admitted sin as the 
cause of all; but in this eloquent, because simple and earnest 
prayer, he freely and fully confessed it. The constant expres- 
sion that he uses is, "I confessed;" "I made my confession 



SIN, CONFESSION, AND ABSOLUTION. 303 

unto the Lord;" "I said, I have sinned, and have done wick- 
edly;" "The sins that we have sinned have brought on this 
great evil." 

The next feature, therefore, in this prayer which I proceed to 
consider is, confession. Confession, if truly felt, is freely ut- 
tered. There are two sorts of confession: there is the confes- 
sion of sin extracted by unexpected disaster, or by the foreboding 
of a deserved judgment; and there is the confession of sin 
freely and spontaneously given utterance to. When Pharaoh 
was under the judgments of Grod, he confessed his sins, but 
he did it as if it were an atonement; and the instant that the 
judgment ceased, the monarch returned to his crimes. We 
read also that Balaam, when the angel withstood him, with a 
sword drawn in his hand, confessed his error : and Judas, in an 
agony of remorse, and amid the sparks of that hell which his 
own wickedness had kindled, confessed that he had betrayed 
innocent blood. But such was not the confession that Daniel 
made; and such is not the confession to which the Christian 
gives expression. The Christian's confession of sin is a very 
different thing. Many men confess their sins just as merchants 
in a storm at sea cast their goods overboard; not that they dis- 
like their goods, but self-preservation compels them to fling them 
away. Their confession is wrung and extorted from them, not 
by a sense of the hatefulness of sin, but from a desire — a vain 
one, I admit — of thereby obtaining security from the judgment 
of God; but a Christian sees sin, and feels sin, to be hateful. 
What pain is to the body, that a Christian feels sin to be to the 
soul; he owns that he has been guilty of it; and he pours out his 
confession of it, like Daniel, freely and spontaneously before God. 

In the next place, where there is true confession of sin, and 
such confession as Daniel here made, it is full and explicit. 
Trace at your leisure every clause in this litany, and you will 
see how full, how explicit, is the confession that Daniel makes 
of every sin of which' he had been guilty. The unconverted 
who confess their sins, not because they hate them and feel their 
burden, but because they would be rid of them in order to avoid 
the consequences that they apprehend, and in order to escape 
the judgments that they fear, make but a half confession. 



304 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

When they begin to confess, they say, so much was owing to 
circumstances; so much to things over which we had no con- 
trol; so much to constitutional temperament; so much to some- 
body else: just as did our first parents, whose succession we 
have truly inherited. When Adam was questioned by God, he 
cast the blame on Eve : when Eve was threatened, she cast the 
blame on the serpent : and only when Christ was preached in 
Paradise, as the woman's seed who should bruise the serpent's 
head, did Adam and Eve kneel at the family altar, and make 
such confession as Daniel made, free and full, laying all the 
blame upon themselves, none upon God. 

And, in the next place, Daniel's confession was specific. 
Wherever there is genuine confession, it will always be personal 
and specific. In public prayer, whether it be the prayer that 
the minister breathes as the mouth-piece of the people, or the 
written prayer and printed which he reads, and prays as the 
mouth-piece of the people, — in either case, the confession cannot 
be personal and specific. It must be a general confession for all 
who are there present. But when you are in your closet — when 
you lift your hearts to God, — are there no personal, specific sins, 
of which you are conscious, and for which your own heart con- 
demns you? — and " God is greater than your hearts, and know- 
eth all things" — those sins you ought, and, if you are Christians, 
you will, specially unfold and acknowledge before Him who 
alone, for Christ's sake, has promised to forgive them. Thus we 
find the apostle Paul, when he acknowledged his sins before 
others, instead of trying to explain them away, rather, if possi- 
ble, exaggerated them. In Acts xxvi. 9, he says, "I truly 
thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to 
the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Which thing I also did in Jeru- 
salem : and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having 
received authority from the chief priests; and when they were 
put to death," he says substantially, "when I could not kill 
them, I was wicked enough to give my voice against them; 
and, more than this, I banished them; and, more than this, I 
persecuted them even unto strange cities; and, more than 
this, I punished them often in every synagogue; and, worse 
than this, I compelled them to blaspheme." What a dark 



SIN, CONFESSION, AND ABSOLUTION. 305 

catalogue of grievous crimes! and what an honest acknowledg- 
ment of them — specific, minute, not diluted, the responsibility 
not shifted, not confessing them to glory in them, or as if he did 
not feel their weight and their heinousness, but humbling him- 
self, and yet, in the intimation that they were forgiven, desiring 
to show us that God had mercy upon him, the chiefest of all sin- 
ners, in order that he might be a pattern of all long-suffering 
and mercy to those that should hereafter believe in the Lord 
Jesus Christ. 

Not only will the believer be specific in his confession of sin, 
but he will also confess with deep sorrow and humility. He will 
regret that he has sinned, not because of sin's fruits, but because 
of sin itself °, and one of the greatest evidences of your soul being 
in a state of grace, is when you can confess to God, and ask for- 
giveness from God, for sins that the world knows not, but for 
secret sins — sins that nobody suspected you of — of thought, of 
affection, of feeling, of heart — when, in short, before God you 
confess secret sin, and seek forgiveness through the blood of 
Jesus, I know not a more distinct or conclusive evidence that the 
Holy Spirit has changed your heart, and that you are a child of 
God, and an heir of the kingdom of heaven. And yet all this 
deep confession of sin before God, as in the case of Daniel, is 
not, let it ever be recollected, the confession of a criminal in the 
presence of a judge, deprecating his wrath, but the confession of 
a son returning to a father, and prostrate at the feet of his father 
asking his paternal blessing and forgiveness. We do not draw 
near to God in Jesus Christ as criminals, deprecating his wrath 
and beseeching his forgiveness ; but as children — it may be, pro- 
digal children — it may be, sinful, stray, and apostate — but yet 
returning children. Never did the prodigal feel what true re- 
pentance was till he was able to say, " I will arise and go to my 
father." That sentence was the evidence and the expression of 
that filial feeling with which he confessed to him his sins : u Fa- 
ther, I have sinned against heaven and before thee." The tear 
in the eye must not dim your view of the countenance of your 
Father. The sorrow in your heart, however bitter, must not drive 
you from God, but draw you nearer to God. The most awful 
aspect of sin is its centrifugal force, when it drives the sinner 

26* 



306 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

from Grod. Sin is then about to be forgiven, when you are led to 
lay it before God. Judas confessed his sin, that he had betrayed 
innocent blood — and he went out and hanged himself. Cain con- 
fessed his sin — "Mine iniquity is greater than I can bear;" and 
he ran out from the presence of God. The prodigal confessed his 
sin, but ran to his father's bosom, and to the threshold of his 
father's house ; and he was accepted, while the two first perished 
in their sins, unforgiven and without hope. 

This confession of sins, my dear friends, must be to God him- 
self. No priest upon earth has a right to exact it. No church 
upon earth has power to command it to be made to any other 
than God. Show me one text in the Bible that indicates, how- 
ever remotely, that we ought to confess our sins to a priest. 
"Confess your sins one to another/' is the only text I ever have 
heard quoted in support of it. But this is mutual, or reciprocal 
confession ; not the confession of the people to the priest, but of 
the people one to another. But I object to all such priestly con- 
fession, on this ground, — that sin is committed against God, and 
against God only; and he against whom it is committed alone 
can forgive it. For instance, if I were to steal, I should do two 
things; I should commit injury on my neighbour, and sin against 
God. What man does to man, man can forgive ; and therefore 
I ask my neighbour to forgive the injury I have done him. But 
sin, which is in the act and rises higher, and strikes against God, 
that God alone can forgive; and therefore, when David said, 
" Against thee — thee only have I sinned," he did not mean by 
that, "Against thee chiefly have I sinned," but truly and exactly. 
The injury or wrong was done to Uriah : his sin was against God. 
And thus, then, if sin be committed against God only, for a priest 
to assume to forgive it is for that priest to play the apostate, and 
place himself in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were 
God. Besides, to look at it in a lower light, what man would de- 
grade himself, fallen as man is, to kneel before a fellow-man, and 
disclose to him the inmost thoughts and feelings of his heart ? 
But the secret of the upholding of that terrible tribunal at which 
I have only glanced, as I have passed along, is the frightful power 
which is comprised in it. I have often heard persons say, that 
they wonder that, when Roman Catholics hear the gospel, they do 



SIN, CONFESSION, AND ABSOLUTION. 307 

not leave their church. So should I too, did I not remember, 
that the moment you become a Roman Catholic you must go to 
the priest — tell him every fact in your biography that you think 
to be sin, every thought, every relationship, every connection; the 
priest learns to know you, your history, your friends, your pros- 
pects, and he transmits all to the great central source where all is 
known. The man who knows me as well as I know myself, is my 
master for life, and I am his slave. His look can awe me, his 
word can silence me. So that the wonder to me is, not that so 
few leave the Church of Rome, when once they are involved in 
its meshes, but that they ever leave it at all. Nothing but the 
grace of God can enable them so to count all but loss for the ex- 
cellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus. To God, then, let us 
confess our sins, not to man. For " to the Lord our God," not 
to the priest or to the pope, " belong mercies and forgiveness, 
though we have rebelled against him." 

And this leads me, therefore, to the third thought which is 
suggested in Daniel's prayer — namely, forgiveness of sin. Sin, 
then, may be forgiven. "To the Lord our God belong forgive-' 
nesses," multiplied acts of forgiveness for multiplied acts of sin, 
or, as the Psalmist says, "There is forgiveness with thee, that 
thou mayest be feared;" for, as he proclaimed himself to Moses, 
"forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin." When God forgives 
sin, sin is not annihilated : a fact cannot be annihilated : a fact 
remains in our memories, sure as its occurrence in the world. 
When, therefore, God forgives sin, he does not annihilate it. As 
far as we can gather from the Scriptures, or from our experience, 
this is impossible. He forgives it, while perhaps we cannot forget 
it : perhaps, in heaven, the sad recollection of what we were will 
add to the enjoyment of what we are, and swell with richer har- 
mony the divine thanksgiving "unto him that loved us," so 
guilty, "washed us," even us, so polluted, "in his own blood, 
and hath made us kings and priests unto God, even his Father : 
to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever." The forgive- 
ness of sin is the exclusive prerogative of God. I have said that 
sin is against God alone ; and therefore God alone forgives it. 
For any priest to assume to forgive the sins of men, is to try to 
snatch a jewel which belongs to the diadem of Deity: it is the 



308 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

foolish attempt to clothe ourselves with a portion of his lofty 
attributes; and so to realize the awful fact, that he who attempts 
to steal a ray from the glory of God, takes a consuming curse 
into his bosom. The forgiveness of sin, I say, is the inalienable 
prerogative of God. He only has the key that opens, and no man 
can shut ; and — blessed be his name that it is so — he only shuts, 
and no man can open. Were all the voices of the dead we have 
injured to rise from their graves, exclaiming, "I forgive, I forgive, 
I forgive/' all the voices of all the dead we have injured together, 
never could extend forgiveness to us. That one still, small voice, 
sounding from the cross, or echoed unspent from the throne, "My 
son — my daughter — thy sins be forgiven thee/' is the word that 
alone has power, the absolution that alone finds a responsive echo 
in the glad and grateful heart of the forgiven sinner. But when 
God forgives — I notice in the next place — he forgives only in one 
way; that is, through a Mediator. God's concern for the funda- 
mental principles of his government is the highest concern in his 
divine nature. God cannot forgive sin at the expense of his jus- 
tice, his- holiness, or his truth. He tells you that there is no sin 
that he will not forgive in one specific way; but if you ask for- 
giveness from the absolute God, that is, in another way, or if you 
ask it because you deserve it, ^r if you ask it in any other name, 
or through any other mediator, or without a mediator at all — in 
short, in any way save in the name of Jesus Christ, God cannot 
give it. 

There is but one channel, and that channel is ever accessible, 
and through that channel a rich flood of forgiveness will pour 
down, that will cleanse the darkest sin, and forgive the greatest 
criminal. The Jews were taught this great and interesting lesson 
for four thousand years. What was the end of all the teaching 
of the Jews ? Just to rivet and work into their hearts this great 
truth : "Without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins." 
Men say they wonder why God desired so many sacrifices, and ap- 
pointed so many bleeding victims among that people. It was just 
to teach this one lesson, which was embodied in every sacrifice, 
impressed in every ceremony, preached by their priests, inculcated 
by God himself; which, notwithstanding, they forgot and re- 
nounced again and again. This great truth, that through the 



SIN, CONCESSION, AND ABSOLUTION. 309 

blood of Christ alone there is forgiveness, is still the truth 
preached from so many pulpits, reiterated so often in your hear- 
ing ; and yet, how little do you feel its force ! how little do you 
act upon it as a reality ! how little in your consciences are you 
convinced that only through the blood of the Lamb there is for- 
giveness for the least sin that clings to our humanity ! Blessed 
be God that Christ suffered I Justice asked for the sufferings of 
a man — Christ rendered the sufferings of a God. He needed no 
sufferings to atone for himself. All his suffering was for us, and 
is accessible to us. His susceptibility of suffering was just in 
the ratio of his spotless purity. His was a depth of agony pro- 
portionate to the grandeur and dignity of his person ; and never 
shall we be able to see how great were the sufferings of that suf- 
fering one, till we feel perfectly how deep is the least sin of which 
humanity is guilty. But now, in Christ Jesus, God is faithful in 
his promise to forgive us, just to his own law to forgive us; his 
mercy having provided to the utmost fulness the victim which his 
justice needed and demanded. Thus God forgives us. What a 
precious truth ! Do we rise to an apprehension of the magnifi- 
cence of this truth, that God forgives us — forgives us the moment 
that we ask it — delights in mercy ? Glorious truth ! God waits 
to forgive us. Glorious truth ! There is forgiveness with thee 
that thou mayest be feared. Well may the prophet exclaim, 
" Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and pass- 
eth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage ? He 
retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in 
mercy." 

Did you ever notice, my dear friends, that the prophet seems 
inspired by the Spirit of God to exhaust all the resources of hu- 
man speech, in order to show us. what free forgiveness is offered 
in the gospel ? It would be an interesting investigation for you 
to pursue at your leisure, to count the expressions applied in 
Scripture to the forgiveness of sins. It is called " the remission 
of sins." God releases the prisoner kept in the prison of con- 
demnation by his sins. God says, in Hebrews, " I will remember 
their sins no more." Among the Jews there was remembrance 
made of sin every year ; they felt that sin ever needed a fresh 
sacrifice, but sin forgiven in Christ is remembered no more. It 



310 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

is so complete that God finds this expression only adequate to 
embody the extinction of it — "I will remember their sins no 
more." He calls it in another passage " not imputing to them 
their trespasses." He treats our sin as a nonenity, and accepts 
us through Jesus Christ just as if we were innocent as to the un- 
tainted and unfallen angels about the throne. Another expres- 
sion that he employs is, "covered;" just as the waters of the Ked 
Sea covered the drowned Egyptians — just as the mighty ocean 
covers the pebble that is dropped into its silent bosom, so God's 
mercy covers our sin. It is called again, " taking away;" just as 
the goat let into the wilderness bearing the sins of Israel was 
represented as taking them away into a land not inhabited : so 
Christ, as the Lamb of God, takes away the sin of the world. It 
is called, again, "blotting out:" "I, even I, am he that blotteth 
out thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins :" just as a writing 
is expunged — just as a stain is extinguished by a chemical solu- 
tion. No language is more fitted to express the fulness of his 
forgiveness than, " The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all 
sin." It is called, again, in another place, " casting them behind 
his back." The most awful passage in Scripture is, " Thou hast 
set my secret sins in the light of thy countenance." We our- 
selves cannot see our secret sins, because our heart is so deadened 
by the hardening influence of sin ; for the greater a sinner is, 
the less he sees his sins ; hence, if you heard the holiest saint in 
the act of confessing his sins, you would suppose he was the 
greatest sinner on earth; and if you heard the greatest sinner 
confessing his sins, you would probably imagine him the most 
excellent of mankind. It is when our vision is purged by the 
unction of the Spirit of God, that we are enabled plainly to see, 
that sins which in the world's eye are microscopic, are in his eye 
deep as crimson, or as purple in their colour. Our secret sins 
are thus set in "the light of his countenance;" but when God 
forgives them, "he casts them behind his back." Another pas- 
sage speaks of removing them from us : " As far as the east is 
from the west, so far hath he removed our sins from us." 

He whom we have crucified, forgives us. He who is the of- 
fended one, forgives the offenders. It is a royal and entire forgive- 
ness, not one charge is left behind, not one sin is unpardoned. 



SIN, CONFESSION, AND ABSOLUTION. 311 

He will remember our sins and our transgressions no more. It is 
an irrevocable forgiveness. When God forgives us, he forgives 
us completely and irrevocably. God's thoughts are not as our 
thoughts. He does not repeal his acts of forgiveness. He never 
recalls, he never revokes them. He forgives us fully, freely, and 
for ever. And it is instant forgiveness. The instant that an 
humble heart asks for forgiveness in the name of Jesus, that in- 
stant it is forgiven : the Saviour says, " Thy sins be forgiven 
thee/' It is a cordial forgiveness. It is not a legal forgiveness ; 
so that we are not merely lawfully forgiven, as if by justice; but 
it is a paternal forgiveness. If only legally forgiven by justice, 
we should be admitted into heaven as forgiven culprits, and 
shunned as criminals returned from a penal settlement. We 
should be as men lawfully forgiven, and tolerated as deeply 
guilty. But this is not the forgiveness of the Bible. It is for- 
giveness in justice, and therefore it is legal ; but it is also for- 
giveness from a Father's heart, and is therefore a cordial forgive- 
ness. And therefore the sinner admitted into heaven is not only 
admitted there as lawfully forgiven, but cordially welcomed : 
" For this my son was dead, and is alive again ; was lost, and is 
found. ;; This forgiveness is an echo on earth to the absolution 
that is pronounced from the throne. The echo is an evidence of 
the original. If you are forgiven, do you recollect the day, the 
hour, and the place when you bowed the knee and sought forgive- 
ness truly, confessing your sins fully, and relying for an answer 
to your prayer only on the blood of the everlasting covenant ? If 
you can say that from the very heart you sought it, and that you 
sought it by Jesus as the only way, you are indeed forgiven, and 
it is sin, it is misery to doubt it. Go forth at once, putting away 
all suspicion, and henceforth rejoice in the blessedness of him 
whose sins are forgiven, being confident in God, relying on the 
riches of his mercy in Christ ; and him that thus honours him, 
He will abundantly honour. 



312 



LECTURE XXII. 



DANIEL S LITANY. 



"0 Lord, hear; Lord, forgive; Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for 
thine own sake, my God ; for thy city and thy people are called hy thy 
name." — Daniel ix. 19. 

I close my remarks on the extremely precious prayer which 
has been the subject of my exposition during the last three 
lectures. I am sure we do not greatly need any liturgy formed 
by man, if we have access to so beautiful a litany as this is, 
inspired by G-od. At all events, however beautiful may be the 
litanies of man, in true beauty they cannot excel, and in compre- 
hensiveness they cannot exceed, the prayer which the Spirit of 
God breathed into the heart of Daniel, and of which this chapter 
is the eloquent and striking expression. How earnest — how 
intensely earnest — are such petitions as these: "0 Lord, hear; 
O Lord, forgive ; Lord, hearken and do j defer not, for thine 
own sake ; for thy city and thy people are called by thy name." 
And again, how striking these words : " Thou therefore, our 
God, hear the prayer of thy servant, that the time, the set time, 
to favour her, Lord, draw near." At this day this is the 
prayer of the Jew. I can conceive no spectacle more touching 
than the weary-footed wanderer of Salem coming back to that 
city, in which was the ark of the covenant, and the cherubim of 
glory, that shone upon the mercy-seat ; and beholding, with deep 
anguish, the barefooted monk desecrating it in one place, by a 
Christianity more superstitious than the Judaism of the modern 
Jew, and the Moslem profaning it in another place by the per- 
sonation of a cruel and sanguinary imposture ; and his beloved 
city, which was once the joy of the whole earth, the focus of all 



DANIEL'S LITANY. 313 

light, and the central object of enthusiastic love, despoiled, de- 
graded, desecrated. Yet, in its deep desecration, its long-con- 
tinued degradation, God has left inextinguishable yearnings after 
restoration in the hearts of that striking race — these living 
national phenomena, that exceed in grandeur all material phe- 
nomena — these living witnesses of the truth of God's threats, and 
I believe not less so witnesses of the truth of God's promises. 
Nothing is more remarkable than to see the Jews crowding from 
all lands, now that the restoration of Zion and the rebuilding of 
Jerusalem draws nigh, kissing the very stones, wetting them with 
their tears, and praying, it may be, a prayer truly heard — for it 
is possible — shall we say it is not improbable— that the Jews who 
rejected Jesus of Nazareth as portrayed by John the evangelist, 
may unconsciously accept Jesus of Nazareth as portrayed by 
Isaiah the prophet, and in the name of the true Messiah, though 
that name is to him no music, he may lift up Daniel's prayer to 
Daniel's God — in groups of gray-haired pilgrims amid the debris 
and wreck of Jerusalem, that God would arise and have mercy 
upon Zion, and lift the light of his countenance upon her, and 
hasten the advent of the set time to favour her. 

In reading the whole of Daniel's prayer for Jerusalem, we 
cannot fail to see that it is as appropriate in the present day as it 
was before. I am anxious to notice certain features in it, which 
must strike the Christian, whether he peruse it or pray it. I 
have already shown in what respects fasting and sackcloth are 
connected with prayer. I have shown, in my next exposition, 
sin the thing confessed, forgiveness the blessing sought for, and 
confession a practice in which Daniel persevered. I now proceed 
to develop some of the features of this prayer; next, the time at 
which it was offered ; and, in the third place, the answer vouch- 
safed to it. The first feature that strikes me, as kindling every 
clause with brightness and the warmth of heavenly fire, is the 
intensity of the feelings and the expressions of Daniel. Clearly 
the prophet felt deeply, and therefore he asked so fervently. An 
instant token, as all are aware, of an accepted sacrifice in the 
elder times, was the descent of fire from heaven to consume the 
sacrifice. Even so the first intimation to you that your prayer 
will be answered, is the intensity with which you pray that 

27 



314 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

prayer. "When a man earnestly and intensely breathes a prayer to 
God, in the name of Jesus, he has in that intensity and earnest- 
ness a fore-pledge from God that he is about to answer it exceed- 
ing abundantly above all that he can either ask or think. Those 
eloquent prayers which are beautifully worded by some, never 
rise above the lips by which they are uttered ; but those broken 
sentences, those simple petitions, when the full heart feels so 
deeply and prays so earnestly, when it cannot wait for unloading 
itself, in order to seek for fine words or beautifully formed sen- 
tences — these are the expressions of an inner celestial fire that 
burns before the Lord, and brings responses from the skies, laden 
with everlasting benedictions. The intensity of Daniel's prayer 
is one of its most striking characteristics ; the incense which was 
used of old was already kindled in the censer, before the smoke 
of it rose to the dome of the temple; and in the same way, 
prayers, to be accepted by God, must not only be presented in 
the name of Jesus — which does not mean merely mentioning 
that name, but feeling that only by one channel can prayer ascend 
to God — that only through one name can they be heard, that is, 
in the name of Jesus — but prior to, and in addition to this, the 
prayer itself, as conceived and cherished in the heart, must be 
kindled from above. In the old sacrifices, there must not only 
be no strange altar, but also there must be no strange fire used 
for consuming the victims on that altar. There must be the 
right fire as well as the right altar. So we must not only pray in 
the name of Jesus, but by the inspiration and kindling of the 
Holy Spirit. This will explain what is meant when it is said 
that the Holy Spirit within us "inaketk intercession for us, with 
groanings which cannot be uttered/' Thus, if your petitions to 
the throne of grace have no intensity spontaneously arising from 
inward earnest feeling, created by a deep sense of your wants and 
a keen perception of the excellence of what you require, and 
these twain inspired and elevated by the Spirit of God, they will 
die ere they reach the mercy-seat. Let a coal, not from the 
grate, but from the altar, kindle them. Let the affections not be 
earthly, from and of the earth, but spiritual and heavenly; and 
such prayer so kindled and so presented, it is as certain that God 
will hear and answer, not only for ourselves but for others also, 



DANIEL'S LITANY. 315 

as tliat tlie sun rises, and stars twinkle, and streams find a path- 
way onward to the unsounded main. If we look at some of the 
expressions scattered throughout the Bible, in order to describe 
this peculiarity of real prayer, we shall find they all denote 
intensity. In one place it is described as importunity; that is, 
not soon going away without an answer — unweariedly persisting 
in asking. God does not say, "Pray once, and I will answer 
you;" but he says, "Pray, and I will answer you." Pray nine 
times, and he may not answer; pray a hundred times, and he may 
not answer ; but pray the hundred and first time, and he may 
answer. All that he has said is, that he will answer; but how 
long, or how often you may pray, that is not for you to know : it 
remains with G-od alone, who knows what is really best for you, 
and most for his glory. I do not believe, my dear friends, that 
we have that confidence in the success and efficacy of prayer 
which we ought to have. I do not mean by prayer, artificial 
prayer; that is, artificially worded and constructed; I do not 
mean reading or saying a prayer, however scriptural and beauti- 
ful; but I mean the uplifting of the heart, the breathing forth of 
desire, the elevation of the soul when no eye can see, and no ear 
can hear, but God's. " I will not let thee go, unless thou bless 
me." I doubt not that some of the most successful prayers are 
uttered on the stones of the Royal Exchange. Some of the most 
fervent prayers may be uttered behind a counter : and the House 
of Lords and the House of Commons are not without men that 
pray, not only that they may devise right measures, but that 
those measures may contribute to the stability of their country, 
and to the glory of God, and the extension of true religion. It 
is not the place that God examines ; nor is it the words that God 
primarily regards; it is not the form in any sense that avails — 
it is the intense and ardent desire breathed from the depths of the 
heart into the ear of God, which God answers exceeding abun- 
dantly above all that we can ask or think. 

Shame, sorrow for sin, perfect abasement, are elements of 
Christian prayer. Not one merit does Daniel plead ; not one 
good deed does he commemorate : he lays his hand upon his 
mouth, and his mouth in the dust, and cries, "Unclean, un- 
clean." It is the bowed heart, not the bowed knee, that honours 



316 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

Jesus. It is the prostration of the soul, not the prostration of 
the body, that constitutes prayer. The outward man is merely 
for communication with man ; it is the inward soul that com- 
municates with God, and God regards it and deals with it alone. 
The body is not the man. What the body does is not always 
what the soul thinks. Man's body is often guilty of hypocrisy, 
but the soul never, at least in the sight of God. To man it 
is the same whether you bow the knee, or fall flat on the face; 
for all these are scriptural attitudes of prayer; the only un- 
scriptural practice being that which prevails very much in Scot- 
land, when the people sit while worshipping God and singing his 
praises, for which there is no precedent whatever. The form is not 
what God looks at; he looks how the heart beats, how the spirit feels, 
what the soul desires, what is the intensity of the feeling, what 
is the earnestness or apathy of the man ; and by what the man 
thinks, desires, prays with his soul, God estimates what the 
prayer is. It is not, therefore, sprinkling ashes on the head, 
or clothing the body with sackcloth, which are appreciated on 
high. But if we see ourselves as we ought, and as Daniel saw 
himself, we shall soon feel that inward and deep abasement and 
humility which Daniel felt, and which urged no plea save what 
it drew from God. It is ignorance of ourselves, and distance 
from God, which is the cause of that ignorance, that makes any 
man proud or self-righteous. The moment that a man sees God 
as he is, he sees in the reflected light himself, just as he him- 
self is also : but as long as he does not know God, so long he 
will think himself very great and very good. In God's light 
we see our darkness; in God's fulness our wants; in God's 
majesty our insignificance; our shame in his glory; our sin in 
his holiness: and thus, when Job saw God, he exclaimed, "Now 
mine eye seeth him ; therefore I abhor myself, and repent in 
dust and ashes." 

And when Isaiah saw the glory of God, beholding him seated 
upon a throne high and lifted up, his first emotion was to cry, 
"Wo is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live in 
the midst of a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen 
the King, the Lord of Hosts." Elijah covered his face with 
his mantle when the glory of the Lord swept by, and the apo- 



DANIEL'S LITANY. 317 

calyptic elders fell down and covered their faces, while they 
cried, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God of Hosts/ ' Pride 
in man is invariably associated with ignorance of God. But 
when we see what God is, as he is revealed in grace — portrayed 
in the Bible — unvailed all that g he has done, we then see as 
we never saw, what we ourselves are, and how deep is the depth 
of our fall; and thus it comes to pass that we shall pray under 
a sense of abasement, not the less intensely, but the more humbly, 
because our eyes have seen the Lord of Hosts. 

It is worthy of notice, too, in this beautiful prayer, that all 
the pleas urged by Daniel are pleas drawn from God ; not from 
any thing in himself, or any excellence m his people. Thus he 
says, in one verse, " All Israel have transgressed thy law, even 
by departing, that they might not obey thy voice; therefore the 
curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is written in the 
law of Moses the servant of God, because we have sinned against 
him. " 

"0 Lord, according to thy righteousness, I beseech thee, let 
thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city Jeru- 
salem, thy holy mountain : because for our sins, and for the 
iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people are become 
a reproach to all that are round about us. Now, therefore, 
our God, hear the prayer of thy servant, and his supplications, 
and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate, 
for the Lord's sake." Every plea he presents is drawn from 
God; the foundation of his hopes is in Deity; our expectation, 
also, and our merit, are there ; the good of man is inseparable 
from the glory of God. God cannot — reverently be it spoken 
— bless a man except that blessing shall reflect his own glory. 
To unfold himself is the great end of all God's creation, pro- 
vidence, and grace ; and to promote his own glory by making 
himself known to us, is the reason why he answers prayer and 
makes his people happy ; and blessed be his name, his glory is 
best promoted when his goodness and his mercy are most realized 
by his people. Who does not recollect the petition of Moses, 
"Show me thy glory?" and the Lord's answer, "I will make 
all my goodness pass before thee ?" God's goodness was pro- 
nounced by God to be his glory. And what was God's glory ? Here 

27* 



318 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

it is : " The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long- 
suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping cove- 
nant and mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, 
and sin/' What a blessed fact is this, that God is arrayed in 
richer glory when he stoops to forgive a sinner, that when he 
stoops to create a world ! Jesus, when he said upon the cross, 
to the thief who hung in agony at his side, " To-day shalt thou 
be with me in paradise," spoke more majestic words than when, 
standing on the confines of the universe, He said, "Let there 
be light, and there was light." We ask God to forgive us our 
sins, and express his love ; we ask him also to manifest his 
justice, for he is "faithful and just;" but we may also say, 
" God, glorify thy name in forgiving the sins of me a sinner." 
We cannot but notice, in this prayer of Daniel, in the next 
place, the complete unselfishness, if I may use that expression, 
that runs through the whole of it. He did not ask mercies for 
himself; he did not pray thus intensely, thus humbly, that he 
alone might have all the good, though God might have all the 
glory; but he implored mercies for "thy people Israel" — "thine 
ancient city Jerusalem, because it was desolate/' A man never 
prays aright who prays only for himself. That prayer is not 
inspired by the Spirit of God that ends with the salvation or 
the sanctification of self. Hence our Lord, in giving us a model 
of prayer, has made it impossible to pray for a blessing on 
ourselves without praying for a blessing on others also, as if 
in our very prayers our blessed Lord would make us pray as 
he makes us love, embracing in both our neighbour as well as 
ourselves. He says, " After this manner pray ye;" not, "My 
Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, &c, give 
me this day my daily bread." Such is the cry of unsanctified 
humanity ; but, " Our Father . . . give us this day our daily 
bread," &c. And so Daniel here prays ; and so will every true 
Christian pray. He will pray for his children — his relations 
— his congregation — his church — his country ; and more com- 
prehensively still, he will pray for all mankind. There is a 
petition which occurs in the Litany of the Church of England, 
at the conclusion of prayers for many distinct classes of people, 
"That it may please thee to have mercy upon all men!" which 



DANIEL'S LITANY. 319 

is to my mind singularly beautiful. Let us not rest in our 
petitions for class after class till our prayers spread in their 
catholicity to the very circumference of the globe, and we pray 
God, "that it may please him to have mercy upon all men." 

In the next place we may notice, in this prayer, what runs 
through it no less evidently, the thorough patriotism of it. Be- 
cause Daniel was a Christian, he did not cease to be a Jew ; be- 
cause he loved the temple of his God, he did not the less love 
the country of his fathers : Daniel sympathized with and was 
ready to make every patriotic sacrifice, in order to benefit and 
bless his country ; but he felt at the same time that it never 
could be prosperous as a country until its Great Restorer should 
have mercy upon it, and forgive the sins of his people, and, to 
use the language of the prayer, cause "his face to shine upon 
it. ;; Not the greatest patriots are those that make the loudest 
profession; not the least patriots are those who only pray be- 
cause prayer is all they can present. Our armies may strike a 
successful blow, our legislature may pass an excellent measure, 
but the blessing of God, for which Christians pray, is that which 
will make the blow of the one permanent, and the measure of the 
other practical and extensively useful. And hence it has been 
well said — 

"Our country owes 
Her sunshine and her rains, her blooming springs, 
And plenteous harvests, to the prayer he makes, 
Where Enoch, like the solitary saint, 
"Walks forth to meditate at eventide, 
And think on her who thinks not on herself. " 

Thus there may be patriots in cellars, whose name the newspaper 
does not trumpet forth; there may be men who contributed to the 
victory of Waterloo, or to the decisive blow of Trafalgar, and 
who still contribute to the loyalty of our people, the stability of 
our commerce, and to the riches and increasing prosperity of our 
agriculture, who never used a pen, or wielded a sword, or marched 
to victory beneath our banners, but who pray that old England's 
God would cause His face to shine upon England's throne, and 
altars, and people, and magistrates, and rulers : and they, it will 
be found, when this world is all laid bare, and its history made 



320 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

patent, contributed more than all to our national stability and 
social prosperity, and were the conductors of blessings from the 
skies to her cities. Thus the prophet prayed for his country, and 
thereby showed himself no less the patriot because he was the 
Christian. 

But Daniel strikingly combined with his prayer deep research 
and personal labour. For you observe that he states in verse 2, 
"In the first year of his reign, I Daniel understood by books the 
number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jere- 
miah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the 
desolations of Jerusalem. " He had therefore been a hard student, 
as well as a spiritually minded and praying man. He combined, 
what some of our Reformers said it was so vitally important to 
combine — " prayer and pains-taking. " 

We too are to engage in any great Christian wprk, the sup- 
port of our schools, for instance, or of our missions, the Bible 
Society, the extension of the gospel, in the exercise of all the 
liberality, zeal, and fervour, which we possess, or can command, 
just as if all depended on what we each do; and yet we are to 
implore the blessing of God, with that deep sense of depend- 
ence, that consciousness of insufficiency on our part, which 
prompts the persuasion that God must do all, or nothing will be 
well done. It seems a paradox to unenlightened minds, and a 
contradiction to the wise of this world, but it is not so: the 
farmer feels justly in his matters what the Christian should feel 
here : he knows quite well that, unless God give sunbeams and 
dewdrops, and fertility to the soil, it will be no use for him to 
sow; and he knows just as well, that in vain God gives sun- 
beams and dewdrops, fresh air and a fertile soil, unless he sows. 
Therefore he does sow; and thus, what with some, in the exer- 
cise of a perverse mind, at first seems a reason why he should 
not sow, is with him the greatest inducement to do so, because 
he knows that God will send " the former and the latter rain in 
his season," and that He has promised, since the deluge, " that 
seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and win- 
ter, and day and night, shall not cease." 

But Daniel's study was not only the study of the Bible and 
books, as the grand depository of truth, but it was also special 



DANIEL'S LITANY. 321 

study of the prophetic Scriptures. He thus presents a complete 
reply to those Christians who say that we are not called upon, or 
even authorized, to study unfulfilled prophecy. Daniel did not 
think so; he studied predictions of the future, and found out by 
books that God would accomplish seventy years in the desolation 
of Jerusalem. He not only discovered that God would termi- 
nate this desolation, but he found out the very period of time 
that this desolation would last; and yet if a Christian minister 
professes, not dogmatically, to pronounce, where confessedly there 
are many difficulties, but to express his belief from this book 
and the apocalyptic records, that the time draws near — that the 
dispensation is in its eve — it will be told him, "You have no 
right to study this book, you have no right to read the Apoca- 
lypse at all : you had better shut it up : let it alone, or you will 
get into difficulties." "Why did God give it? I ask those who 
say so. Vv r hy did God write it? You say it was that infidels 
may afterward be converted by witnessing in history the ful- 
filment of prophecy: but half of that will not be fulfilled till 
the Millennium, when there will be no infidels to be converted. 
This is not its only use. It is for us to study, and to try to ex- 
pound it. But God himself has said what terminates the dis- 
pute, " Blessed is he that readeth the words of the prophecy of 
this book;" and in my own case I may say that I have found as 
rich a blessing from reading and studying the Apocalj^pse, as in 
studying any other portion of the Bible. Ponder and pray over 
all that God has written. The Protestant's rule of faith is not the 
Bible without the Apocalypse, but it is the Bible and the Apoca- 
lypse, the whole word of God. Here you have the example of 
Daniel studying numbers before those numbers had terminated 
in actual accomplishment; and what Daniel did with acceptance 
then, I do not see why we may not try to do, with humble 
prayer for the teaching of the Spirit of God, and with his bless- 
ing now. 

Let us notice, in the next place, the time at which Daniel 
prayed. It was the time of the evening oblation. The answer 
came at that hour, and the presumption is that the prayer was 
then being offered up. But why did Daniel select this season for 
prayer? Because Daniel felt just what you well know — that, dis- 



322 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

sociated from the sacrifice of Jesus, and detached from his name, 
no prayer can be accepted of God. This great truth is the very- 
substance of the gospel. Your prayers should be offered in the 
name of Christ; in him they should begin, in Christ they should 
continue and close. By him alone is the way to rise to God. 
By him alone, as the way, can an answer come down from God. 
It matters not where you pray, if you pray in the name of Jesus. 
The Christian economy has abolished all the distinctions of time 
and place. What is decent, what is orderly, what is convenient, 
these, and the consideration of all these, are most right; but if 
you say that an oratory in your house is better for family wor- 
ship than your drawing or your dining-room, because it has been 
consecrated by a presbyter or a bishop ; or if you say that God 
will hear a prayer in Latin that he will not hear in Hindostanee 
or in English, or that he will hear in a chapel what he will not 
hear in a private house ; if these be your sentiments, you are far 
gone in Bomanism; or, rather, your creed is more ancient than 
that of Bomanism, it is that of Levi, a reflex to Judaism : pray- 
ers under that dispensation must have been made in one place in 
order to be accepted ; sacrifice must then have been offered on 
one particular altar; but now, wheresoever, on mountain crag, in 
valley, on the sea, on the shore, in the dungeon, or in the palace; 
in cathedral, church, or chapel; in chancel or in cellar; with 
bowed knee, or standing, or prostrate, or with none of them — if 
there be prayer inspired by the Spirit of God, intensely felt, and 
addressed in the name of Jesus, and lifted up to our Father, 
there God hears, and there God will answer. 

But there may have been another reason for Daniel's praying 
at evenings. The Psalmist says, " At morning, and at evening, 
and at noon will I praise thee." Evening seems the most solemn 
hour of the day, and so far a suitable time for individual retro- 
spection and communion with God. Then the noise of the world 
grows fainter ; the air becomes still ; the excitement of life has 
passed over ; the fever of human strife is laid. Our heart can 
rise in the stillness of evening, to intercourse and fellowship with 
God. The dews that then fall to saturate the earth should re- 
mind us that our hearts need the softening, fertilizing influence 



DANIEL'S LITANY. 323 

of the Spirit of God. The stars that come forth to beautify the 
sky, and send down their pale sheen upon us, ought to remind us 
of that bright and morning star, the rising of that sun that shall 
never set. And if there be an evening each day, forget not that 
there is also an evening of life, when specially we should pray ; 
when all the tints and the lights of youth are gone, when the 
noontide passions of manhood are quelled, and there comes the 
solemnity, if I may so call it, of gray hairs, and tottering limbs, 
and an enfeebled body ; when the curfew-bell, that announces as 
it were the extinction of all earthly fires, is heard in every heart ; 
then should we pray, as Daniel prayed, that the twilight of the 
evening which is now falling may, in our case, mingle in the twi- 
light of that bright day which is fast approaching, when the sun 
shall rise, ascend his meridian, and set no more. It was at this 
season that Daniel prayed. He was an aged man at this period, 
of about ninety years of age. 

At other times too should 'we pray. "When our communion 
season comes round we should pray as we approach the table of 
our Lord, that we may go there in a right spirit. I know not a 
more beautiful festival than the communion ; I wish only it were 
of more frequent recurrence. But I do not believe that there 
should be at that time a special preparation, and, when it is passed 
by, a more thorough participation in the cares, the anxieties, and 
the follies of the world. Our hearts should always be ready for 
it. I believe in the early church they received the Lord's sup- 
per every time they met for public worship. I feel the infre- 
quency of the celebration of the communion has generated a feel- 
ing, especially in the North, that there is something awful in it. 
I have noticed in some parts of Scotland, that on this occasion 
men put on their gloomiest apparel, and feel as if they were about 
to undergo some heavy calamity, or as if they were coming to 
some dread sacrifice, some awful expiation that they are about to 
make. I do not say that enlightened men thus feel, but I know 
that many regard it with such feelings. And I know that in 
speaking with my own countrymen about coming to the Lord's 
table, many of them have received in the North in their early 
years such impressions of the terrible and the awful, in connection 



824 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

with the Lord's supper, as they cannot cast off in maturer and 
more enlightened age. 

My dear friends, there is nothing awful in that communion : 
Jesus took all the awful to himself, and has left to us all the 
pleasant. He made the sacrifice ; we taste the feast that succeeds 
the sacrifice. He took all the agony ; we receive all the blessing. 
And if there he any festival to which we should come with glad 
hearts, it is to the communion-table ; our jubilee, our congrega- 
tional festival ; that Easter-day when we specially commemorate 
the fact " the Lord is risen ;" that bright and happy day when 
we look forward to the other truth, that He that rose and reigns 
will come again ; that glad festival in which we sit down at the 
table of our blessed Lord, and thus actualize the words of the 
Creed, " the communion of saints." We think too of those that 
were here before; who are now surrounding a better table, enjoy- 
ing a brighter fellowship ; and we give G-od thanks for what he 
has made us, and for what he made them ; and we look forward 
to that happy day when we shall join their loftier communion, 
and seat ourselves at a table that never shall be drawn. I have 
noticed myself, during the sixteen years I have ministered in this 
pulpit, that the communion-table every quarter presents a new 
aspect ; I miss gray hairs, and venerable ones I have often be- 
held. I miss too once young, and bounding, and hopeful hearts 
that were once there also. I see new faces taking the place of 
old ones ; and nothing so vividly reminds me within these walls 
that this is not our home, and that we are pilgrims and strangers, 
looking for a better city, than our recurring communion-table. 
When I say our communion-table, it is not mine, it is the Lord's; 
and if there is any one spot where I rejoice to see all true Chris- 
tians, whatever be the party to which they belong, it is there. It 
is not the monopoly of a sect ; on it is written, " Do this in re- 
membrance of me : for as often as ye eat this bread and drink 
this cup, ye do show forth the Lord's death till he come." 

While I thus show my catholic feeling in this respect, yet at 
the same time I must say that I prefer our own Scottish form : it 
is so simple, so beautiful, that the longer I see it the more am I 
impressed with its simple grandeur, its severe, and, as some would 



DANIEL'S LITANY. 325 

call it, its stern simplicity. But it matters little whether we 
kneel, or sit, or stand, if it is at a table surrounded by glad and 
thankful hearts, who eat this bread and drink this cup because 
Jesus has suffered that we might suffer no more. 

In the next place, I wish to observe, in closing my remarks 
upon this prayer of Daniel, that the answer was immediate. 
" While I was speaking," he says, " Gabriel came and touched 
me/' What a striking incident is this ! There is a text in the 
Bible that seems to me expressive of a greater marvel than even 
the electric telegraph. You know that a question asked at one 
end may be answered almost instantly two hundred miles away. 
But there is a text that anticipates the marvel : " It shall come 
to pass, saith the Lord, that before they call, I will answer, and 
while they are yet speaking I will hear." A quicker communion 
with God have we than even that suggested by the wondrous elec- 
tric telegraph ; for God hears us while we speak, answers us be- 
fore we ask, and in every case " exceeding abundantly above all 
that we can ask or think." 

My impression is, that this Gabriel who was sent to Daniel was 
not an angel, but the Holy Spirit of God. This conclusion, to 
which Bishop Heber came, is founded on the derivation of the 
word, and also upon a passage that occurs in the Gospel of Luke. 
The word Gabriel means simply "the power of God." Compare 
Luke i. 19 : "I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God j" 
and ver. 26 — " Gabriel was sent from God to a virgin espoused 
to a man whose name was Joseph f* and ver. 35 — " The angel 
answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon 
thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee;" which, 
if literally translated into Hebrew, will be, " and Gabriel shall 
overshadow thee." It may mean therefore in this place also, the 
Holy Spirit of God, who takes of the things of Christ and shows 
them to us. And it seems the more likely, because it was this 
Gabriel who came and instructed Daniel on a subject on which 
the Spirit teaches J for what was the nature of his instruction ? 
About Messiah, the Prince. And what is the great office of the 
Holy Spirit ? " He shall take of the things of Christ, and shall 
show them unto you." It may, however, have been an angel, for 

28 



326 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

as the apostle teaches us, "angels are ministering spirits, sent 
forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation." And 
if Gabriel was a mere angel, he was sent not to claim for himself 
our adoration, but to execute God's message, and to minister to 
Daniel. The message was made to Daniel as "Daniel greatly be- 
loved." The acceptance of the person takes place before the 
answer to the prayer is given. We must first be accepted as 
Christians before we can pray as Christians. God accepts us 
first, and then our prayers, to which he sends down an answer. 



327 



LECTURE XXIII. 

Messiah's death 



"And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for 
himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and 
the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of 
the war desolations are determined." — Daniel ix. 26. 



I defer in this lecture all chronological discussion respecting 
the epoch which the prophecy plainly intimates. I assume the 
fact, which cannot be denied, because it has been irresistibly 
proved, that this relates to the death — I add, the sacrificial death 
— of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whether we take the grounds of 
chronology, or the descriptive language of the passage, it is im- 
possible to come to the conclusion that any other is pointed at 
here than the Redeemer. I assume, therefore, that this is a 
prophecy of Christ, as well as the statement of his death, and, 
by implication, the nature and direction of that death. It was 
his shame that he was " cut off;" it was his glory that it was 
" not for himself." It was the evidence that he was man that 
he died; it was the demonstration that he was more than man, 
and so his death, very different from ours, that he died not for 
himself. The death of Christ is the subject of extended pro- 
phecy. Isaiah liii. is an exposition of Daniel ix. 26. That won- 
derful chapter of the evangelical prophet may be called the true 
crucifix. It describes his death, the nature of his death, the re- 
sults of his death. It is expressly applied by an inspired apostle 
to the death of Christ; and therefore, about its application, in a 
Christian's mind, there can be no doubt whatever. When Peter 
says, "Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: 
who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, 
he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth 



328 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

righteously : who his own self bare our sins in his own body on 
the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteous- 
ness : by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep 
going astray; but are now returned unto the shepherd and 
bishop of your souls/' — all this is just the echo of the language 
of Isaiah, and therefore evidence that Peter clearly understood 
the 53d of Isaiah to refer to our blessed Lord. 

Now, the important truth I am anxious to establish as the 
testimony of the Spirit is — the sacrificial, or the atoning nature 
of the death of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; and in order 
to do so, I will bring forward less the argument of man, and 
more the simple, but conclusive testimony of the Spirit of Grod. 

Let me notice, however, preliminary to the introduction of the 
passages that clearly indicate the expiatory, or atoning, or sacri- 
ficial, or vicarious nature of the death of Christ, — for all these 
words have one leading idea running through them, — that in the 
New Testament, whether in the Grospels or in the Epistles, there 
is a constant reference made to the death of the Lord Jesus, and 
far more frequently than to his birth, his life, his example, or to 
his aboriginal dignity. When he speaks of himself he says, 
" The Son of man goeth, as it is written of him;" that is, he is 
about to die, as it has been predicted of him in the prophets. 
And he alludes again and again in the minutest particulars to 
this event, as the fulfilment of ancient prophecy. "A bone of 
him shall not be broken." " They pierced my hands and my 
feet." "They parted my raiment, and cast lots for my ves- 
ture." All of these are references to his death, the peculiar ac- 
companiments of that death, and to that death as the burden of 
ancient prophecy, the great central point to which and about 
which all ancient predictions converge. The death of Jesus, 
so singularly painful, is represented, throughout Scripture, as 
that of a perfectly innocent being. His own crucifiers could 
prove nothing against him. A voice from heaven said, with un- 
earthly majesty, " This is my beloved son, in whom I have been, 
am, and shall be, well pleased." Judas himself said, " I have 
betrayed innocent blood." Pilate said, "I find no fault in him." 
Satan was equally unsuccessful. 

If the objectors to the atonement say, "It is not reasonable 



MESSIAH'S DEATH. 329 

that the just should die for the unjust/' they might say, with 
still greater force, it is not reasonable, on the same grounds, that 
the just should die at all. Here, then, is the phenomenon, the 
strange phenomenon — that a being, pronounced by God to be in- 
nocent, proved from the silence of his enemies, the contradic- 
tions of his accusers, and the personal and protracted experience 
of his friends and followers, to be an innocent being, is found to 
have been the greatest sufferer of the greatest agony of any that 
ever bore a cross, or perished from the earth. 

It was a perfectly voluntary death; it was not forced upon 
him contrary to his will; it did not overtake him by surprise. 
He pointed it out as the ultimate stage of his journey; he pre- 
dicted it as a fact that must of necessity be. He said of him- 
self, — "1 lay down my life; no man taketh it from me." He 
chose to die, and chose to die not because he loved death, but 
because he loved us. It was for the joy set before him — that 
joy, the restoration of sinners — that he endured the cross, and 
despised the shame. If Christ's death be not atoning, the fact 
that he, the innocent, thus died voluntarily, and by choice and 
preference, is an inscrutable mystery, an inexplicable fact. 

Again : while his death was voluntary in this respect, it was, 
in another respect, the result of divine predetermination and 
decree. The Father is said to have " sent" him, and to have 
" given" him. In the Acts of the Apostles, it is said that " he 
was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of 
God." And again : " Against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou 
hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, 
and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do what- 
soever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done." 
It is worthy of notice, that what God predetermined is not said 
to have been the teaching of Jesus, the mission of Jesus, or the 
example of Jesus, — but the death of Jesus. Unless, therefore, 
there be something emphatic, peculiar, distinctive in that death, 
we cannot understand how it should be that of an innocent be- 
ing, perfectly voluntary on his part, and yet predetermined by 
G-od the Father. 

Jesus was put to death, charged with the blasphemy of assum- 
ing to be God, while his enemies protested he was not God. He 

23* 



330 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

claimed equality with God — of this there is no doubt — and when 
told that he had done so, he admitted and justified the claim. 
Now, if those who deny the atoning nature of the death of Christ 
believe that he was a divine teacher sent from God, ever speaking 
truth, and incapable of assuming what was not his right, they 
must feel that when he claimed to be God, he stated what was 
true, and assumed what was perfectly due to him; and that, 
therefore, he was God. Here, also, the mystery of his death 
accumulates. "We have not only the strange mystery of an 
innocent being suffering death, a voluntarily chosen death — a 
death predetermined and decreed by God ; but a Divine Being 
in our nature suffering that death. Must there not have been 
something peculiar, significant, emphatic, in the death of Jesus, 
such as is not in the death of the most sainted martyr that ever 
lived and died ? 

What accompanied the Saviour's death is also very peculiar; so 
much so as to have been the accompaniment of no other death. 
That awful and mysterious agony in the garden Cf Gethsemane ; 
that still more mysterious cry upon the cross, "My God, my God, 
why hast thou forsaken me V and in the midst of that terrible 
forsakenness to which he gave so poignant an expression, the 
putting forth of the sublime power of saying to the thief upon 
the cross — "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise;" — surely, 
surely this was not the death of an ordinary missionary, nor of 
even the holiest martyr. All this stamps the death of Jesus as 
something unique, totally different from the death of any other 
recorded in the annals of the sufferers of mankind. 

Then mark the other fact. Jesus suffered, as he indicated 
himself, what no holy martyr ever suffered. He cried, " Why 
hast thou forsaken me ?" No Christian was ever forsaken at his 
death by God. Is it not God's own promise ? — " I will never 
leave thee nor forsake thee." This is promised to every believer. 
Never yet was a true Christian forsaken of God in the agony of 
death. Yet Jesus was. " Why hast thou forsaken me ?" Does 
not this indicate something in this death more than in the death 
of a good man setting an example of patience ? Is it not a death 
in its nature clearly distinguished from all other deaths, and in- 
dicating an end which is not exhausted by what the Socinian, 



MESSIAH'S DEATH. 331 

or the Unitarian, or the mere moralist, pronounces concerning 
Jesus ? 

The death of Jesus was also accompanied with miracles — and 
these very remarkable ones. We are told, that from the sixth 
hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. 
This never accompanied any other death. We are told, again, 
that " the vail of the temple was rent in twain from the top to 
the bottom : significative, as explained by the apostle in his Epistle 
to the Hebrews, of access to the holiest of all. We are told that 
" the earth did quake, and the rocks rent, and the graves were 
opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and 
came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the 
holy city, and appeared unto many." We read, also, that "when 
the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw 
the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared 
greatly, saying, [from the overwhelming demonstration nature 
was rendering to the significance of his death,] Truly this was the 
Son of G-od. 

L'astly, what is equally peculiar and distinctive, Jesus instituted 
a memorial, celebrated in every sanctuary, every day of the year 
somewhere, called the Supper of the Lord, or the Eucharist; 
having a retrospective reference to the fact that he died upon the 
cross. 

Now I ask, Why did not Jesus select his baptism to be com- 
memorated ? Why not his birth, when angels broke the silence 
of the night, and proclaimed peace on earth, glory to God, and 
goodwill among mankind ? Why did he take that very fact in 
his history which is still the most offensive to the Jew, the most 
incredible to the G-entile, the greatest evidence of his humiliation, 
his degradation, and his shame ? Why did he take that one fact 
in preference to the more majestic facts of his biography, to be 
the subject of a ceaseless memorial in every congregation through- 
out the world, and to the end of time ? Do not, I ask, all these 
things indicate, nay, demonstrate, that there was in the death of 
Jesus that which was not in the death of Paul, Peter, or Poly- 
carp, or Ignatius, or of sainted sufferers or devoted martyrs, from 
the beginning to the present hour ? 

Having indicated these facts, I now proceed to transfer from 



332 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

the pages of the New Testament the leading descriptions of the 
death of Christ, in order that you may have, not my reasoning, 
or my inferential conclusion, hut G-od's own testimony respecting 
the significance, the nature, the issues, and the effects of the 
death of Jesus. For this purpose I have taken from the " Bibli- 
cal Repository" for April, 1850, a collection of texts which strike 
me as extremely conclusive, in their combined bearing, on the 
nature of the death of Christ. I present, first of all — 

HISTORICAL APPELLATIVES OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 

1. BavdTOs — Death. 

Rom. v. 10 "We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son. 

1 Cor. xi. 26 Ye do show the Lord's death till he come. 

Philip, ii. 8 ..And became obedient unto death, even the death of the 

cross. 

Col. i. 21, 22 Yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through 

death. 

Heb. ii. 9 Made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death. 

ii. 9 Should taste death for every man. 

ii. 14 That through death he might destroy him that had the power 

of death. 

ix. 15 He is the Mediator of the New Testament, that by means of 

death for the redemption of the transgressions. 

2. ' AnoOvrJGKw — Die. 

Rom. v. 6 In due time Christ died for the ungodly. 

t. 8 While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 

vi. 10 For in that he died, he died unto sin once. 

xiv. 15 Destroy not him . . . for whom Christ died. 

1 Cor. viii. 11 The weak brother perish, for whom Christ died. 

xv. 3 How that Christ died for our sins. 

2 Cor. v. 14 That if one died for all, then were all dead. 

v. 15 But unto him which died for them. 

1 Thess. v. 9, 10... To obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died 
for us. 

3. "Zravpog — Cross. 

1 Cor. i. 17 Lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. 

i. 18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish. 

Gal. v. 11 Then is the offence of the cross ceased. 

vi. 12 Persecution for the cross of Christ. 

vi. 14 Glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Eph. ii. 16 Reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross. 

Philip, ii. 8 Became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. 



MESSIAH'S DEATH. 333 

Col. i. 20 Made peace through the blood of his cross. 

Heb. xii. 2 For the joy that was set before him endured the cross. 

4. "Zravpdco — Crucify. 

1 Cor. i. 13...-. Was Paul crucified for you? 

i. 23 But we preach Christ crucified. 

ii. 2 Save Jesus Christ and him crucified. 

Gal. iii. 1 Evidently set forth, crucified among you. 

5. UfaTru — Slay. 

Rev. v. 6 Stood a lamb, as it had been slain. 

v. 9 For thou toast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy 

blood. 

v. 12 Worthy is the Lamb that was slain. 

xiii. 8 The Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. 

6. ndaxo)— Suffer. 

Mark viii. 31 The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected. 

Matt. xvi. 21 ; Luke ix. 22. 

Luke xxii. 15 1 have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer. 

xxiv. 26 Ought not Christ to have suffered these things ? 

xxiv. 46 It behooved Christ to suffer. 

Acts iii. 18 God before had showed . . . that Christ should suffer. 

xvii. 3 Christ must needs have suffered. 

Heb. ix. 20 For then must he often have suffered. 

1 Pet. ii. 21 Christ also suffered for us. 

iii. 18 Christ also hath once suffered for sins. 

iv. 1 Forasmuch, then, as Christ hath suffered for us. 

7. HaOrjua — Suffering. 

Heb. ii. 9 A little lower than the angels for the suffering of death. 

ii. 10 Perfect through sufferings. 

1 Pet. i. 11 Testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ. 

v. 1 A witness of the sufferings of Christ. 

8. Aijua — Blood. 

Matt. xxvi. 28 This is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for 

many for the remission of sins. Mark xiv. 24; Luke 
xxii. 20. 

Acts xx. 28 Which he hath purchased with his own blood. 

Rom. iii. 25 Through faith in his blood. 

v. 9 Being now justified by his blood. 

1 Coi\ ii. 25 This cup is the New Testament in my blood. 

Eph. i. 7 In whom we have redemption through his blood. 

ii. 13 Are made nigh by the blood of Christ. 

Col. i. 20 Having made peace through the blood of his cross. 

Heb. ix. 14 How much more shall the blood of Christ . . . purge your 

conscience. 



334 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

Heb. x. 19 Boldness to enter into the holiest of all by the blood of Jesus. 

x. 29 Hath counted the blood of the covenant an unholy thing. 

xiii. 12 Sanctify the people with his own blood. 

xiii. 20 Through the blood of the everlasting covenant. 

1 Pet. i. 2 Sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. 

i. 9 (redeemed) with the precious blood of Christ. 

1 John i. 7 The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleansethus from all sin. 

Rev. i. 5 Washed us from our sins in his own blood. 

v. 9 Hath redeemedus to Godby thy blood. 

vii. 14 Made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 

9. ¥vxn — Life. 

Matt. xx. 28 To give his life a ransom for many. 

John x. 15 1 lay down my life for the sheep. 

1 John iii. 16 Because he laid down his life torus. 

10. Karapa — Curse. 
Gal. iii. 13 Being made a curse for us. 



Now take all the passages, bearing on and descriptive of the 
death of Christ, and what must be the inference ? Is this the 
death of an ordinary martyr ? Why is the death of Jesus thus 
selected, thus dwelt upon — the whole stress of the gospel, as it 
were, being laid upon it? Why does the apostle pronounce 
" Christ crucified," and not " Christ baptized," as the epitome of 
the gospel ? Why does he say, " G-od forbid that I should glory, 
save in the cross of Christ," and not rather, " G-od forbid that I 
should glory, save in the crown, or in the manger, or in the ex- 
ample, or in the life of Christ V Why is it in the whole apoca- 
lyptic song not, the Lamb that was baptized, that was born, that 
lived so holy, that died so meekly, but "the Lamb that was 
slain ?" Why is so much said about the blood of Christ — that 
which cannot be said about any other shed blood upon earth ? 
The answer must be, that there is something in the death of 
Christ so peculiar, so singular, so unlike, in its meaning and its 
application, to the death of any other, that we must conclude 
that we do not exhaust its meaning when we say it was an atone- 
ment made by the just for the unjust, that sin may be forgiven 
and sinners may be saved. 

The next class of phrases may be called — 



MESSIAH'S DEATH. 335 

COMMERCIAL APPELLATIVES. 

1. Avrpooj — He deem. 

Tim. ii. 14 That lie might redeem us from all iniquity. 

I Pet. i. 18, 19 Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, . . . but with 

the precious blood of Christ. 

2. Avrpov — Hansom. 

Mai. xx. 28 The Son of Man came ... to give his life a ransom for many. 

Mark x. 45. 

3. AuriXvrpov — Ransom. 

1 Tim. ii. 6 Who gave himself a ransom for all. 

4. Avrpoxjis — Redemption. 

Heb. ix. 12 By his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, hav- 
ing obtained eternal redemption for us. 

5. ' Ano'XvTptecns — Redemption. 

Rom. iii. 24. Justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in 

Christ Jesus. 

1 Cor. i. 30 Who of God is made unto us . . . redemption. 

Eph. i. 17 In whom we have redemption through his blood. 

Heb. ix. 15 That by means of death for the redemption of the transgres- 
sions. 

6. Ayopafa — Tip.ii — Buy — Price. 

1 Cor. vi. 20 For yeare bought -with & price. 

2 Pet. ii. 1 Denying the Lord that bought them. 

Rev. v. 9 Has redeemed us to God by thy blood. 

xiv. 3 Which were redeemed from the earth. 

xiv. 4 These were redeemed from among men. 

7. 'E^ayopd^w — Redeemed from. 

Gal. iii. 13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law. 

i v. 5 To redeem them that were under the law. 

8. Tlepnrodonai — Purchase, or acquire. 
Acts xx. 28 Which he hath purchased with his own blood. 

9. Uepnroiwis — Purchased possession. 

Eph. i. 14 Until the redemption of the jiurchased possession 

1 Pet. ii. 9 Apeculiar people, (literally, of acquirement to himself.) 

Here is another class of expressions which again show that 
the death of Christ must have something very peculiar and 
significant in it. They tell us what we are purchased from — ■ 



336 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

from " all iniquity," from " the curse of the law," from u con- 
demnation." We are told, too, what we are purchased with — 
with his life, his blood, himself; not by his example, not by his 
teaching, not by his miracles, not by his walk : we are purchased, 
redeemed, washed, justified,- accepted, through his death. Again 
I say, there must be something very peculiar about the death of 
Christ to warrant the application of such phraseology to it. 
The third class of expressions may be called — 

SACRIFICIAL APPELLATIVES. 

1. 'Apx^psvs — High-Priest. 

Heb. ii. 17 That he might he a merciful and faithful High Priest. 

iii. 1 High-Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus. 

iv. 14 We have a great High-Priest that is passed unto the heavens. 

Jesus the son of God. 
vi. 1 For every High-Priest taken from among men, is ordained for 

men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts 

and sacrifices for sins. 

v. 10 Called of God an High-Priest after the order of Melchisedec. 

vii. 26 For such an High-Priest became us. 

viii. 1 We have such an High-Priest, -who is set on the right hand of 

the throne of the majesty in the heavens. 

2. : hpevg — Priest. 

Heb. v. 6 Thou art apnesffor ever. 

ii. 11 Another p riest should rise after the order of Melchisedec. 

x. 21 An high-ioriest over the house of God. 

3. 'lepuxrvvn — Priesthood. 

Heb. vii. 4 Hath an unchangeable priesthood. 

4. ' LXdo-KO/jLai — Reconcile by expiation. 

Heb. ii. 17 A merciful and faithful high-priest in things pertaining to God, 

to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. 

5. 'LW/rOj — Propitiation. 

1 John ii. 2 He is the propitiation for our sins. 

iv. 10 Sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. 

6. 'TKaarfipiov — Propitiation. 

Rom. iii. 25 Whom God has sent forth to be & propitiation through faith in 

his blood. 

7. 'A[U'ds — Lamb. 

John i. 29 Beh old the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. 

1 Pet. i. 19 Blood of Christ, as a lamb without blemish and without spot. 



MESSIAH'S DEATH. 337 

8. 'Apviov — Lamb. 

Eev. v. 12 Worthy is the Lamb that was slain. 

vii. 14 White in the blood of the Lamb. 

xiii. 18 The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. 

9. 6vu> — iraaxa- — To Sacrifice — Passover. 

1 Cor. v. 7 For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us. 

10. Qvaia — A Sacrifice. 

Eph. v. 2 Hath given himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to 

Cod. 

Heb. ix. 26 Hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 

x. 12 After he had offered one sacrifice for sins. 

11. Upoadopa — An Offering. 

Eph. v. 2 Hath given himself an offering and a sacrifice to God. 

Heb. x. 10 Through the offering of the body of Jesus once. 

x. 14 For by one offering he hath perfected. 

12. Tlpotxpspu — Offer. 

Heb. ix. 14 Who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot 

to Cod. 

ix. 35 Nor yet that he sJiould offer himself often. 

ix. 28 So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. 

x. 12 After he had offered one sacrifice for sins. 

13. 'AvcxpipM — Bear. 

Heb. ix. 28 So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. 

vii. 2 7 For this he did once when he offered up himself. 

14. 'E.vTvyxavw — To make intercession. 

Heb. vii. 25 Seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. Isa. 

liii. 12. 

ix. 24 But into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God 

for us. 

15. n.apax'XriTOs — An Advocate. 

1 John ii. 1 We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the 

righteous. 

Now what do all these passages show? That the idea of atone- 
ment or sacrifice is inseparable from the death of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. These are phrases borrowed from the ancient Jewish 
economy. Was that economy distinguished by sacrifices? Was 
the idea of an atonement at all impressed and inculcated upon 
that people ? Let us look at their sacrifices. In every sacrifice 

29 



338 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

of an expiatory kind offered by the Jew, there was first a trans* 
gressor, somebody who was morally or ceremonially unclean. 
There was, secondly, a victim — a goat, a lamb, or a bullock, the 
blood of which was shed and sprinkled on the altar. There was 
next a priest who slew the victim, shed its blood, and sprinkled 
it on the altar. And there was, lastly, the imposition of hands 
upon the head of the victim. The idea inculcated was that the 
guilt of him who laid on his hands was transferred, directly or 
indirectly, to the victim that was slain, or the goat that was dis- 
missed and sent away into the wilderness. No one, therefore, 
can deny that the whole Jewish ceremony was pervaded by the 
idea of expiation — that the great lesson inculcated in every act 
was, without shedding of blood there was no remission of sins. 
Now every one of these expressions is applied to the Lord Jesus 
Christ. He is our propitiation, our priest, our sacrifice, our altar, 
our atonement. He substituted himself, the just in the room of 
the unjust; and pardon, forgiveness, and acceptance are associated 
with his so substituting himself, and so being a sacrifice for our 
sin. The idea, then, accumulates in evidence that Jesus died, 
not an example how the good should meekly suffer, but an atone- 
ment by which the sins of the guilty might be forgiven. 
The next class of expressions are — 

TERMS OF OBJECTIVE, OCCASIONAL, AND PERSONAL RELATION. 

1. ( Auapria — Sin. 

Matt. xxvi. 28... "Which is shed for many for the remission of sin. 

John i. 29 The Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. 

Acts xiii. 38 Through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of 

sins. 

Rom. vi. 10 In that he died, he died unto sin once. 

viii. 3 In the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in 

the flesh. 

1 Cor. xy. 3 That Christ died for our sins. 

2 Cor. v. 21 Hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no siii. 

Col. i. 14 Redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. 

Heb. i. 3 Had by himself purged our sins. 

ii. 17 To make reconciliation for the sins of the people. 

ix. 26 To put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 

ix. 28 Once offered to bear the sins of many. 

x. 12 After he had offered one sacrifice for sins. 



MESSIAH'S DEATH. 339 

1 Pet, ii. 24 Bare our sins in his own body on the tree. 

iii. 18 Hath once suffered for sins. 

1 John i. 7 The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. 

ii. 2 He is the propitiation for our sins. 

iii. 5 Manifested to take away our sins. 

iv. x, Sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 

2. 'A[xdprriiJ.ci — Sill.. 

Rom. iii. 25 Set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to 

declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are 
passed. 

3. HapaTrrwjxa — Offence, Trespass, Sin. 

Rom. iv. 25 Who was delivered for our offences. 

Eph. i. 7 Redemption through his blood, forgiveness of sins. 

4. Hapafiaais — Transgression. 

Heb. ix. 15 That by means of death for the redemption of the transgres- 
sions that were under the first testament. 

5. 'Avop.ia — Iniquity. 

Tit. ii. 14 That he redeem us from all iniquity. 

6. 'A/xaprcoXdj — Sinner. 

Rom. v. 8 While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 

1 Tim. i. 15 Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. 

7. *A<re,8ris — Ungodly. 
Rom. v. 6 In due time Christ died for the ungodly. 

8. "Adims — Unjust. 

1 Pet. iii. 18 Eor Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the 

unjust. 

9. 'ExOpdg — Enemy. 

Rom. v. 10 When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the 

death of his Son. 

10. Tovg vnd vo/xou — Those under the law. 

Gal. iv. 5 To redeem them that were under the law. 

11. TlpoParov — Sheep. 

John x. 15 1 lay down my life for the sheep. 

12. 'ExTcAjjcrta — Church. 

Acts xx. 28 The church of God, which he hath purchased with his own 

blood. 
Eph. v. 25 Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it. 



340 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

13. Aadj — People. 

Heb. ii. 17... To make reconciliation for the sins of the people. 

xiii. 12., Wherefore Jesus also that he might sanctify the people with 

his own blood, suffered without the gate. 

14. FLoXXol — Many. 

Matt. xxvi. 28.... Which is shed for many for the remission of sins. 

xx. 28 To give his life a ransom for many. 

Heb. ix. 28 So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. 

15. Ilaj — iravrts — Every one — all. 

2 Cor. v. 14 If one died for all. 

v. 15 And that he died for all. 

1 Tim. ii. 6 Gave himself a ransom for all. 

Heb. ii. 9 That he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every 

man. 

16. Koojuoj — World. 

John i. 29 Tbe Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. 

vi. 51 And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give 

for the life of the world. 
1 John ii. 2 And he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, 

but also for the sins of the whole tvorld. 

Is not the thought still more clearly impressed that the atone- 
ment of Jesus was of an expiatory nature, when all the phraseology 
and risages of the ancient Levitical economy are applied to that 
death ; and when Christ is said to have died rjTtkp for avri instead 
of, and 7T£p). in behalf of, or concerning us ? Does it not prove 
that sin is in some way removed by his death, and that sinners 
are in some way benefited, as the blessed and glorious issue ? 

TERMS OP REMOTE RELATION, OR FINAL DECISION. 

1. Sajjco — Save. 

Matt, xviii. 11 For the Son of man came to save that which was lost. 

John iii. 17 That the world through him might be saved. 

xii. 47 1 came not to judge the world, but to save the world. 

1 Tim. i. 15 Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. 

2. Ycorrjp — Saviour. 

1 John iv. 14 The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. 

3. "A0£<7(s — Remission, Forgiveness. 

Matt. xxvi. 28 Which is shed for many for the remission of sins. 



MESSIAH'S DEATH. 341 

Acts v. 31 Him hath God exalted ... to give repentance to Israel, and 

forgiveness of sins. 

xiii. 38 Through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of 

sins. 
Eph. i. 7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the for- 
giveness of sins. Col. i. 14. 

4. Ylapzaig — Pretermission. 

Rom. iii. 25 For the remission of sins that are past. 

5. Aixaicj — Justify. 

Acts xiii. 39 By him all that believe are justified. 

Rom. iii. 24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption 

that is in Christ Jesus. 

v. 9 Being now justified by his blood. 

Gal. ii. 17 But if, while we seek to he justified by Christ. 

6. AiKaioavvrj — Righteousness. 

Rom. iii. 25 Set forth to be a propitiation ... to declare his righteous- 
ness, that he might be just, and the justifier of him which 
believeth in Jesus. 

Rom. x. 4 Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one 

that believeth. 

2 Cor. v. 21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, 

that we might be made the righteortsness of God in him. 

7. KccTaXXayti — Reconciliation. 

Rom. v. 11 By whom we have received the atonement. 

8. ~KaTa\Xd<i(Tco — Reconcile. 

Rom. v. 10 We were reconciled to God by the death of his Son. 

2 Cor. v. 18 Who hath reconciled us to himself by Christ Jesus. 

v. 19 In Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing 

their trespasses unto them. 

9. ' AiroKaraWaTTO} — Reconcile. 

Eph. ii. 16 That he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the 

cross. 
Col. i. 21 Yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through 

death. 

We have thus the end which Christ came to accomplish. He 

came to put away sin, and to save sinners. The nature of that 

result is described as salvation, forgiveness, remission of sins, 

justification, righteousness, reconciliation. Does not this still 

more strongly inculcate the idea I am now teaching, that Christ's 

death was expiatory, vicarious, or atoning ? 

29* 



342 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

TERMS EXPRESSIVE OP DIVINE ACTION. 

1. Aidco/ii — Give. 

John iii. 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten 

Son, that whosoever helieveth in him should not perish, 
but have everlasting life. 

2. Ylapahi6u>iii — Give up, deliver. 

Rom. iv. 25 Who was delivered for our offences. 

viii. 32 He that spared (tytiaaro) not his own Son, but delivered him 

tip for us all. 

3. "Fix6orog — Delivered up. 

Acts ii. 23 ..Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and fore- 
knowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands 
have crucified and slain. 

4. Upoopi^co — Determine before. 

Acts iv. 28 For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined 

before to be done. 

5. ' ' AirocrriXXa — Send. 

John iii. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the 

world, but that the world through him might be saved. 

1 John iv. 9 Sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live 

through him. 

iv. 10 Sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 

iv. 14 The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. 

6. Hporidrim — Setfor-th, appoint. 

Rom. iii. 25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation. 

7. Ilotccj ajxapriav — Made sin. 

2 Cor. v. 21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who know no sin, that 

we might be made the righteousness of God in him. 

I have given you these specimens of all the expressions 
associated with the death of Christ contained in the New Testa- 
ment Scriptures. I first ask you to notice the enormous stress 
that is laid upon his death; how justification, acceptance, for- 
giveness, are all associated, not with his baptism, not with his 
example, but with his death ; how the great end for which G-od 
sent him into the world w*s not, as here declared, to set. a beauti- 
ful example, but to die. I ask you to notice how that death is 
connected with all the institutions of Levi, which were intended 
confessedly and professedly to inculcate the idea of the atonement ; 



MESSIAH'S DEATH. 343 

and how, in the next place, it is associated with our sins and 
their removal, and with sinners and their acceptance before G-od. 

Now, with regard to these passages, the very eloquent but 
deeply deceived Dr. Channing, whose dying creed it is said was 
very different from his living creed, renouncing the Socinianism 
which could not save, and accepting the Christianity which alone 
proclaims the atonement and the forgiveness of sins, states, in 
vol. iii. of his works, after referring to some of these extracts 
from the New Testament Scriptures, and speaking of the body 
of which he was so eloquent and gifted an exponent : " Many of 
us are dissatisfied with this explanation of the death of Christ, 
('that it procures forgiveness by leading to that repentance and 
virtue which is the great and only condition on which forgiveness 
is bestowed/) and think that the Scriptures ascribe the remission 
of sins to Christ's death with an emphasis so peculiar, that we 
ought to consider this event as having a special influence in re- 
moving punishment." Here is a ray of light entering into that 
great man's mind, and showing how dissatisfied he was with the 
popular theology of* his body • and thus inducing us to believe 
what was reported of him was true- — that he died renouncing his 
unitarianism, and accepting the precious blood of Jesus as that 
which cleanseth from all sin. 

Suppose you wished to convey the idea which Channing dimly 
saw, but which we rejoice to have the privilege and joy of fully 
accepting — the expiatory and atoning nature of the death of 
Jesus — I defy you, or even the eloquent author whom I have 
quoted, to select verbs, nouns, adjectives, epithets, and appella- 
tives, that more emphatically, directly, and fully declare that the 
death of Jesus was expiatory and atoning. If you will read those 
extracts which I have given, and will try to find language more 
definite, more decided, more clearly explanatory of your meaning, 
that Christ died as an atonement, you will find it impossible to 
do so. The apostles have exhausted language in order to convey 
this idea. If they did not understand that Christ died as an 
atonement, they have purposely, deliberately, and designedly 
deceived mankind. It is impossible to suppose that men who 
understand the use and the meaning of language — that weapon 
of great power — could ever have used such phraseology so often, 



344 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

in such changes of circumstances, in such variety of construction, 
on so many occasions, out of so many incidents, except they had 
intended to convey this great idea, that the death of Jesus was 
an atonement made on behalf of sinners, and for the remission 
of the sins of them that believe. Therefore we infer that the 
system of unitarianism, which alleges it is not a sacrifice, is 
simply the creed and misconception of man ; that the system of 
superstition, which says it was not a complete sacrifice, but needs 
to be added to, is simply the system of the priest ; and that that 
creed is the true one, because the divine one, which declares that 
he died, the just in our room, the holy one in the room of the 
unholy ; that the spotless Lamb wore our tainted fleece, that we, 
the fallen and stray sheep, might be clothed with his glorious 
righteousness ; that he paid all we owed to God, and secured 
from God far more than God owed to us ; that his blood cleanseth 
from all sin, and that in him, and by him, and through him — -to 
the exclusion of all repentance, all good deeds, all sufferings, all 
prayers of saints and intercessions of angels, every thing in 
heaven or earth, however excellent or however bad — that in him 
and through him alone, we have forgiveness of sin and justifica- 
tion in the sight of God. Blessed truths are these ! Blessed be 
the God that has revealed them. We have not to climb to 
heaven by the penitential stairs our imaginations may construct, 
nor to purchase our entrance into heaven by a draft on the funded 
merit or virtues of any church or corporation whatever. We 
have not to do something in order to deserve heaven : God gives 
us heaven as a birthright, and bids us, conscious of the gratitude 
we owe him, go forth and show that we are his, and manifest our 
devotion to his will, by living to his glory and his honour, in 
doing his commandments. It is not for us to speculate whether 
God could have saved us by any other process. No speculation, 
I conceive, can be more foolish. It is matter of fact, that there 
is none other name but One by which we can be saved — that 
there is but one process of restoration revealed unto us; and 
instead of speculating whether we could have been saved by any 
other process, it is the safer, it is the truer way, it is the only 
one, earnestly to study what God has said, and to seek to be 
saved in the way of his own appointment. 



MESSIAH'S DEATH. 345 

This atonement was not made to make G od love those whom he 
otherwise hated. This is not the accepted view of any enlight- 
ened auditory, nor is it sanctioned in Scripture. The atonement 
was offered not to create in God a love that was not, hut to he the 
exponent and evidence to us of a love that was and is : and it is 
not true that God so hated us that Christ, to intercept his wrath, 
interposed to save us; hut he so loved us, that he gave, as an ex- 
pression of that love, Christ to die for us. It is not the proposi- 
tion of the Bihle that God loves us because Christ died for us : 
the converse is its declaration — that G-od so loved us that Christ 
died for us. The death of Christ was provided by the mercy of 
him against whose justice we had sinned, that that mercy might 
reach us with all its pardoning fulness, in perfect harmony with 
that justice which he had insulted j so that God should appear 
the most just when he exercises the richest mercy, and should be 
arrayed in the brightest glory when he forgives the chiefest of 
sinners through the blood of Jesus. If this be so, how little 
reason have we to be ashamed of the gospel of Christ ! Well and 
truly did an apostle say, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of 
Christ." In the death of Jesus was a real and intrinsic gran- 
deur. He died — the evidence that he was man ; but he atoned 
in that death — the demonstration that he was more than man. 
He that died for us was the Lord of Glory. That dead Christ 
was the Prince of Life. That babe in the manger was the 
Mighty God. He that said, " The foxes of the earth have holes, 
and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath 
not where to lay his head," was he that stretched out the firma- 
ment and scattered over it its ever-burning stars. And that 
cross, which to the world was the symbol of shame, is to us glo- 
rious as the shekinah between the cherubim. Christ crucified is 
emphatically the hope, the trust, the confidence of all believers. 

Thus we see the nature of the death which Christ died for us. 
Its vicarious nature is indisputable. It was not the patient ex- 
ample of a saint's dying, but the atoning suffering of a divine 
victim. Have you accepted it as such ? Have you closed with 
God's offer of mercy in Christ Jesus ? If you have not, why 
not ? I know not a guilt more heinous than that of the man who 
hears of the occurrence of such a fact, and retires unconscious of 



846 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

its importance, unimpressed by a sense of responsibility, unat- 
tracted to God the Father manifesting his love in the death of 
Christ the Redeemer. If yon are not justified and accepted 
through him, let me ask you, as I have often done, why ? Is God 
unwilling to receive you ? At this moment he waits for you; and 
if you should wait a thousand years, you will not be more willing 
to go to God, and he will not be more willing to accept you in the 
name of Jesus, and the way will not be more easy. God waits to 
be gracious; he has no pleasure in the death of a sinner, but 
rather that he should turn from his wickedness, repent, and live. 
Do you answer, " the provision is insufficient V Is such an ob- 
jection consistent with the passages I have quoted ? I announce 
the good news, when I proclaim, as God's ambassador, there is 
not one sin, be it the most heinous, the most offensive before man, 
and the most terrible and criminal in the sight of God, for which 
there is not forgiveness in the blood of Christ. The efficacy of 
that blood is not diluted by years, or exhausted of its virtue by 
the number to which it is applied. There is as much forgiveness, 
and as free, and as full, and as complete and irreversible, in the 
year 1850, as there was for them who had dyed their hands in 
the crucifixion of Jesus, and shouted, with atheistic blasphemy, 
" Crucify him, crucify him -" but who were, in spite of their 
sins, and through the sufficiency of the blood of Jesus, afterward 
received by faith, the very first-fruits of his death, on the day of 
Pentecost. If, therefore, you are not pardoned, it is plainly not 
because God is unwilling, or the provision insufficient. Are there 
not motives strong enough to influence you ? Is not the hope of 
a glorious kingdom, that never can be moved, a hope stimulating 
enough ? Is not the possibility of escape from condemnation and 
everlasting ruin a reason urgent and eloquent enough ? Look 
down into the depths of the ruin which you have not reached, 
but to which our sins must drive us, if unforgiven ; and then look 
to the heights of that glory which we have forfeited, and so often 
turned our backs on, and which the sufferings, the agony, and the 
blood of Jesus alone have retrieved for us ; and say, if there are 
not motives enough, in the position in which you now stand, in 
the danger you may avert, in the glory you may reach, why you 



MESSIAH'S DEATH. 347 

should flee to the refuge set before you, and seek now, once for 
all, acceptance and forgiveness before God. 

But do you think, as some most erroneously do, that all will 
be saved ? My belief is, that the dogma entertained by a few is 
the feeling cherished in the hearts of nine out of every ten of the 
unconverted — that somehow or other they will get an interest in 
the mercy and forgiveness of God, and that they need not trouble 
themselves about it now. They know not how, they cannot say 
when; but they are pretty sure that that mercy will be shown 
them when they stand in need of it. This is not the theology of 
the Bible. It tells you that God's mercy is to be obtained only 
in one way — only by knocking at the one door — only by pleading 
in one name — only by asking through one channel. If it be not 
asked through that name, through that channel, and for the 
sake of him who died that it might reach us, it will never be 
obtained at all. 

Mere forgiveness is not the sole result of the death of Jesus. 
He died, not only that sin may be removed, but that human na- 
ture might be restored, rebeautified, reconstructed from its ruins, 
and made fit for, as well as entitled to, the presence of God. It 
is as necessary that you should be sanctified as justified. Justifi- 
cation and acceptance are but the commencement, not the close : 
they are not (to use the language of schoolmen) the terminus ad 
quod, but the terminus a quo ; not the end toward which you 
move, but the starting-place from which you run the race that 
leads to honour, glory, and immortality. If you were a heathen, 
and had never heard the gospel, and if in the agonies of death 
Christ upon the cross were pointed out to you clearly and dis- 
tinctly, I would not despair, but believe that then and there, there 
would be forgiveness for you. But you occupy a different posi- 
tion. You have heard, this day, what lifts you out of that posi- 
tion for ever. You have heard that God waits, that God is now 
willing ; and that it is your privilege, your duty, and safety, to 
come instantly to God. Therefore, if you adjourn your accept- 
ance of the truth, it must be amid the consciousness of a duty 
you wilfully neglect; it is adjourning to a day for which God has 
given no promise ; — in other words, it is confessing your sins first, 
and then going forth to do that sin ; it is admitting that you 



348 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

know your duty, but, for reasons best known to yourself, you pro- 
crastinate that duty. 

But I believe the great reason why so few think deeply, and so 
few are interested in this precious sacrifice, is, that they do not 
think at all about the subject. The mass of mankind have their 
hearts so filled with thoughts about this world, that they have 
not one hour for solemn thoughts about eternity. The morning 
is for breakfast, the forenoon for business, the evening for dinner, 
the night for sleep, — not one moment for the soul, for God, for 
the Bible, the judgment-seat, eternity ! They hear the funeral 
bell, but they never think it will one day toll for them. They 
see the funeral procession, but they forget that they will be the 
main object of another similar procession one day. They hear of 
death here, and sickness there ; but they never think it possible 
for them to die. Life is the most precarious thing, the most frail 
thing. The strongest and healthiest have only a lease for the 
time that is occupied by a single pulse of .the heart ; and as soon 
as that heart has beaten, the lease is over : God in his grace may 
renew it, and does renew it ; but each beat is the end of a lease. 
Soon the trumpet will sound, and the dead will rise ; and if that 
be not so soon, very soon we shall lie down upon a death-bed ; 
and if you could only see what I have often witnessed, how pale 
the splendour and grandeur of the world looks then, how poor, 
worthless, and valueless its honours, its wealth, its dignity, weigh 
then, — if you could only realize now what you then and there will 
feel, you would rise and go to your Father, and instantly, in the 
name and through the merits of Jesus, seek that forgiveness 
which is waiting for every sinner in this assembly that will. 



349 



LECTURE XXIV. 



THE GREAT SACRIFICE. 



" And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah he cut off, but not for 
himself; and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city 
and the sanctuary ; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the 
end of the war desolations are determined." — Daniel ix. 26. 

In my previous lecture I collected some — not some, but 
many — of the remarkable texts of Scripture, which describe or 
allude to the death of our Blessed Lord ; and I showed, that if 
all these texts be collected together, and their scattered rays made 
to converge, as it were, in one focus, it is impossible to fail to see 
that the death of Jesus was more than that of a mere patient 
martyr, and that it is neither unnatural nor illogical to conclude, 
that his was the death of an atoning Victim, of one " cut off, but 
not for himself." 

I proceed in this lecture to show, not from the texts which I 
formerly collected and collated, but rather from certain principles 
indicated in Scripture, and fairly deducible by our own minds 
from the language of Scripture, that the death of Christ, in order 
to constitute the substance, or have a claim to the character, of 
the " good news," — to be of any personal, present, and everlast- 
ing virtue to us, as sinners, must have been an atonement made, 
an expiation and sacrifice presented, by the substitute for the sin- 
ner. I showed you — what I am sure you must feel to be per- 
fectly conclusive — that the texts I quoted are inexplicable (if 
those who wrote them understood the use of language) except on 
the supposition that Christ's death was expiatory, atoning, or a 
sacrifice propitiatory for the sins of all that believe. 

Let me now look at three great propositions which seem to me 

to necessitate the description of death which I have attributed to 

Jesus, namely — an atonement for our sins. 

30 



350 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

Let us look, first, at the law of God. What is the law ? It is 
not holiness created, but holiness simply made known. " Holi- 
ness is perfect happiness, sin is perfect misery," would have been 
true if the sentiment had never been revealed in human speech. 
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy Grod with all thy heart, and thy 
neighbour as thyself," was not made when the law was given ; it 
was only proclaimed. The proclamation of the law is mercy, the 
expression of goodness itself, — for it lets the creature know what 
the Creator ever does, ever must, and ever will, exact of that 
creature. 

This law, thus clearly revealed to man, has been broken by us ; 
conscience unequivocally says so : I have failed in obedience to 
it ; every thought in my mind, every affection in my heart, every 
record in my memory, every pulse in my being, tells me I have 
broken that law, in thought, or in word, or in deed. I have not 
trodden the path that leads to happiness ; I have not paid the 
price of which everlasting joy is the reward; I have not done the 
work of which heaven is the wages. That law clearly and un- 
equivocally tells me, " As far as I, the law, am concerned, I can 
hold out no hope of a passport to glory to you, — no prospect of 
everlasting joy, — for ' cursed is every one that continueth not in 
all things that are written in the law, to do them/ " These words 
just describe the condition of every one. Under the curse is that 
state in which we are born — the cold shadow under which we lie. 
We do not need to perpetrate some terrible violation of Grod's law 
in order to be condemned : we are born condemned; we are born 
in prison ; we are criminals by birth — we need no change in 
order to be lost, the change must take place in order to our being 
saved, that thus may be turned our terrible and downward pro- 
cession, and given us an impulse that will lift us from ruin to a 
state of restoration, from enmity to Grod, to a condition of recon- 
ciliation and friendship. 

Where, I ask, is there any disclosure by the law of the possi- 
bility of life through our obedience to that law ? We are satisfied 
that we have broken it ; we are satisfied, from its own lips, that 
we are condemned by it. How shall we escape the consequences ? 
Is there any crevice in the whole of Sinai out of which there is 
emitted one word of the hope of restoration to the guilty ? Is 



THE GREAT SACRIFICE. 351 

there any reasoning mind that will show me that God can be 
merciful to the extent of forgiving all my sins, and yet continue, 
what he proclaims himself to be, the infinitely holy, the infinitely 
just, the infinitely true ? In other words, as long as I am deal- 
ing with the law, and directed by its light only, having no con- 
nection with the gospel, and without a ray of its glory, I ask, 
how long will the mercy of God descend in pardoning ? — how 
high will the justice of God rise in punishing ? Will he be mer- 
ciful, and save all ? — or will he be just, and condemn all ? Where 
will his justice stop in condemning ? Where will his mercy stop 
in acquitting and forgiving ? Must he not be, as far as human 
light can teach us, inconsistently merciful in order to be just, and 
inconsistently just in order to be merciful — a God who is a com- 
posite of contradictions and impossibilities, if so be that sin is to 
be forgiven without an atonement, or an expiatory sacrifice ? Is 
there one intimation, however faint, of forgiveness from law ? Is 
there any hint, however dim, in nature ? — is there any rock on 
the earth, — any star in the sky, — any flower on the field, — any 
tree, or cloud, or created thing, — is there any page in memory, 
any pulse in conscience, — any intimation in the height or in the 
depths, any exquisite analogy, any beautiful and fair revelation, 
in the currents of Providence, that tells me that there is forgive- 
ness with God ? There is none. I can read or hear none. Wind, 
and wave, and flower, and star, earth and sea, memory and con- 
science — all are dumb, hopelessly dumb; they do not give the 
least hint of forgiving mercy in that holy God against whom we 
have sinned. 

Let me look at another division of human nature, and we shall 
see from it the necessity for that atonement of which I have 
already treated. In every man's bosom there is what is called a 
conscience ; and that conscience responds to the moral, just as 
taste responds to the beautiful, and reason to the true. Any one 
who will speak honestly, or express his feelings honestly, will 
tell you that his conscience, however seared, however deadened, 
however it may have been bribed and stupefied, still responds, 
more or less distinctly, to the good, and remonstrates, in more or 
less unequivocal terms, against the evil. Does it not often speak 
to you in spite of you ? Does it not often, indeed, excuse ? but 



352 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

does it not still oftener accuse ? Do not its accusations, on the 
whole, outnumber its apologies ? Does it not talk to you in your 
most silent and meditative moments of a righteousness that is 
wanting, of a Judge that is waiting, and of a destiny far beyond, 
that will be for ever blackened or brightened by what you are — 
sad and sorrowful, or radiant with joy and glory ? 

Does not conscience often ask, in its calmest moments, what 
was asked by the prophet of old : " Wherewith shall I come be- 
fore the Lord, and bow myself before the High God ? Shall I 
come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old ? 
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten 
thousands of rivers of oil ? Shall I give my first-born for my 
transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul V And 
in order to answer this question, you have tried fastings, austeri- 
ties, mortifications of the body; but none of these have satisfied 
you. You have fled to the cell of the monk, to the solitude of 
the anchorite, or, like Martin Luther, you have climbed on bare 
knees the penitential stairs of St. Peter's; but conscience, un- 
reached by these external penances, has smitten you and accused 
you still. Or, perhaps, priests have absolved you — popes have 
given you indulgences, councils have proclaimed long and lasting 
jubilees ; but you have found that neither in priest, nor pope, nor 
in council, nor in absolution, nor in jubilee, nor in mortifications, 
nor in austerities, has there been any virtue that could penetrate 
the soul, and touch and heal the inner and sore part of the con- 
science ; it cries aloud — You are sinful ! — and it concludes, on 
irresistible evidence, that there is no remedy in law, or in nature,, 
for its malady. Thus, if we look at God's law — uncompromising 
and undiluted law — we see the necessity of something being done, 
to right us in relation to that law. If we examine our own con- 
sciences, we feel the necessity of something being done to give 
these consciences peace. 

If we examine, in the next place, the very nature of sin, we 
shall see the necessity of some such stupendous interposition as 
that of God in our nature, our sacrifice, and our atonement. Sin 
is, in the history of the universe, a new thing, a strange pheno- 
menon, an awful interpolation — hateful, frightful, destructive. 
We do not see or feel it as it is. Our insensibility is propor- 



THE GREAT SACRIFICE. 353 

tionate to our spiritual deadness. The more sin contaminates, the 
more it blinds us to its nature, its demerit, and its effects. Sin 
is unlike every other thing. Not its least awful characteristic is 
its endurance ) it stretches into eternity, and acts for ever as a 
corrosive and consuming curse. There is no evidence that sin 
originates its own cure. If there were evidence from analogy, or 
from experience, or from history, that sin, like a fever, exhausts 
itself, and not only leaves no injurious effect behind, but lets the 
patient return to freedom and happiness, one might conceive it 
possible to be eternally happy without an atonement. But there 
is no evidence in this world that sin exhausts itself, or leaves its 
victim, or loses its virus ; and there is no evidence that in the 
world to come the state of the lost shall be mitigated, or their 
sufferings, the penal results of sin, mitigated, or the curse that 
wraps them like a shroud ever put off. Let me illustrate my 
meaning. Suppose a convict is banished to a penal colony for a 
term of seven years. If he spends the seven years, he exhausts 
his punishment, and he is let loose, and he returns again to his 
native land. But suppose that convict, in the course of the seven 
years, commits a new offence, that again he receives the sentence 
of other seven years : and suppose that in the second term of 
banishment he commits a fresh offence still : you can see a career 
of ceaseless sin, and, therefore, a course of ceaseless penalty. It 
is so, my dear friends, with the lost. By the very nature of their 
being, they are ever sinning, and ever suffering. Sin in the realms 
of the lost is an eternal evil, never working out its own cure, but 
ever working out its own perpetuity. By their very instinct, by 
the very laws of their nature, they go on sinning ; and by the law 
of God they must go on suffering. Who knows but that the 
awful characteristic of the sufferings of the lost may be, that their 
sins and their sufferings accumulate for ever, and that hell, in an 
arithmetical, or a geometrical, or some dread ratio, goes on in- 
creasing in its terrors, as the lost multiply their transgressions and 
their blasphemies against God ? 

It is thus that we see, whether we look at God's holy law, or 
at man's own conscience, or at the nature of sin, that some grand 
interposition man is incapable of devising is needed, before that 
law can be magnified, conscience pacified, sin expiated, extirpated, 

30 * 



354 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

and put away for ever. Only by these, and not in spite of these, 
can man he saved. At this crisis we have the most glorious 
tidings that ever sounded in the ear of man : " The Messiah was 
cut off/' — there is the evidence he was man ; — " but not for him- 
self/' — there is the proof that he was something more than man. 
The 53d of Isaiah is the most brilliant commentary on Daniel ix. 
26 ; a commentary that has multiplied its echoes in varied accents 
over all the Bible. " God so loved the world that he gave his 
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him might not 
perish, but have eternal life:" " might not perish/' in spite of 
that law which condemns him, in spite of that conscience which 
accuses, in spite of that sin which ever works out its own perpe- 
tuity. "In him we have redemption through his blood, even the 
forgiveness of sin." " By him all are justified from all things 
from which we could not be justified by the law of Moses," 
After you have read the ten. commandments, and applied them in 
all their length and breadth to your condition and conscience, 
what a glorious fact that the chiefest of sinners can write down 
after the tenth commandment, " The blood of Jesus Christ, his 
Son, cleanseth from all sin." " Blessed are the people that know 
the joyful sound /' u blessed are the people that are in such a 
case." In the light of this divine revelation, through the provi- 
sions of this atonement, I can clearly and rejoicingly see how 
God can pardon me, while even I am sinning, and as he pardons 
me, draw my heart off alike from the love, the power, and the 
pursuit of sin. I can see through this glorious atonement how 
God can retain all his justice, and present it to us with a greater 
lustre ; all his holiness, and reveal it to us in more august glory, 
and yet justify from all their sins the ungodly that believe. I can 
see how this law, which God did not create on Sinai but only re- 
vealed, is magnified in his eyes, and before the universe, while 
the greatest sinner is forgiven his greatest sins. Jesus, I am told, 
thus cut off as our representative, bare our curse and the conse- 
quences of our sin : he obeyed in our stead the exactions of a 
holy law. In Christ I am as if I had suffered and exhausted the 
penalty I have incurred ; in Christ I am as if I had obeyed and 
rendered perfect obedience to the law, which I cannot perfectly 
obey. Our sins were on him, our infirmities and agonies were in 



THE GREAT SACRIFICE, 355 

liim. He was the spotless Lamb arrayed in our tainted fleece; 
and we the stray sheep may now be clothed in his glorious 
righteousness. God saw iniquity in Jesus where nobody else saw 
it; and, blessed be his name, at the judgment-day he will see 
righteousness upon you and me where nobody else can see it. God 
hid his eyes from the innocence of Jesus, because our sins were 
laid on him ; he will hide his eyes from the guilt of sinners, be- 
cause of the righteousness of Jesus laid upon us. Jesus was 
condemned for our sins, in which he had no share ; we shall be 
justified by his righteousness, in which we have had no personal 
part whatever. Our sins laid upon him, brought upon him the 
thunders and curses of the law; his righteousness laid upon us 
will draw down upon us the blessings of life everlasting. Such, 
then, is that atonement expressed in the words of Daniel : " Cut 
on , but not for himself/' He died, the just in the room of the 
unjust, in order to bring us unto God. 

But all that I have shown respecting the atonement as yet is, 
that it opens up a possibility of forgiveness. It may perhaps be, 
as far as I have yet shown, only a loophole by which the sinner 
can escape from ruin and get access to heaven. It may be, as 
far as we have yet advanced, a mode by which we can escape the 
penalties of a violated law, and be introduced into heaven and to 
the presence of God, but no evidence that I shall be welcome 
there. I have, therefore, to intimate, that the atonement is not 
only the provision of a way of escape, but more — it is the highest, 
the intensest expression of the infinite and inexhaustible love 
that God bare me ; it is not merely that I escape by the atone- 
ment, that I am simply forgiven by it, but that I am accepted by 
it. If the atonement were a mere escape-way from the curse, I 
might just be admitted into heaven when I die, exactly as the 
criminal to whom I have referred, when he had finished his seven 
years of banishment, comes back to his native place, and is ad- 
mitted to citizenship : he is not cordially welcomed; he is looked 
on with suspicion, and his brand never leaves him; he remains 
a marked character ; you tolerate him ; but you do not admit him 
to your friendship, to your family, or to your bosom. It might be, 
if the atonement is a mere provision for the escape of sinners 
from hell, that I should be admitted into heaven and tolerated 



356 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

there, that I should be merely admitted there, that I should he 
borne and forborne with there. If this were all, it would not 
satisfy me. I want not merely that God should let me go, but 
that he should take me back ) I want not only to be lifted from 
the curse, but to be placed in the sunshine of God's countenance; 
I want not simply to be admitted to heaven, but to be welcomed 
to heaven — not to be tolerated as a pardoned criminal, but to be 
welcomed as an accepted and beloved son. Blessed be God ! this 
atonement, this "cut off, but not for himself," this sacrifice of 
Jesus, is not only precious for what it does, but for what it ex- 
presses : it proves to me not only that God can save me because 
a provision has been made, but that he saves me because he 
loves me ; not only that he will forgive me, but that he will also 
take me back ; that not only is the Legislator satisfied to admit 
me into heaven, but that the Father waits at the threshold to 
welcome me to his bosom. "God so loved the world that he 
gave his only begotten Son." Therefore, the atonement is not 
merely, as many people drily and coarsely regard it, a legislstor 
making provision for the possibility of criminals escaping a curse, 
but it is a Father making a channel for the outflow of his infinite 
love, that the prodigal may again be his restored son, that the 
dead may live, that the lost may be found, and all heaven rejoice 
that it is so. Never, then, my dear friends, forget or merge this 
blessed and delightful view of the atonement — that it is precious 
not only for what it does, but for what it expresses ; not only as 
the provision of a way of forgiveness, but as the expression of the 
infinite love that God bears to you and to me, his believing and 
accepted family. 

If, then, this atonement, thus precious and needed as I have 
shown it to be, was made by our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ, I think it is impossible to escape the inference that he 
that made it must have been more than man ; that he is, as all 
evangelical Christians believe him to be, and rejoice that he is, 
"the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of 
his person." If Jesus were simply man, no atonement has been 
made for us. Judging by the revelation God has given us, I 
hold that it would have been inconsistent with the eternal laws 
of God's moral universe, so far as these are embodied in the 



THE GREAT SACRIFICE. 357 

Scriptures, to condemn an innocent man to die for even a guilty 
world. For what is the law of God's universe? That perfect 
holiness is perfect happiness. But if an angel, or an archangel, 
the most exalted and glorious of seraphim or cherubim, had been 
doomed by God to suffer, such a doom would have been reversing 
his own law — in short, as great a violation of that law as if he 
had admitted a guilty creature to be happy. There would have 
been as great an inversion of God's moral government in con- 
demning an innocent creature to suffer as in admitting a guilty 
creature to be happy. Jesus, therefore, while he became man, 
was, and is, God. He that suffered was he that slew : he alone 
could say, (which is the very language of Godhead,) " I lay down 
my life." I need no express texts, though there are many, to 
teach me that Christ is God, while I hear him saying, " I lay 
down my life." Man he is, for he has life which can be laid 
down ; more than man he must be, for no creature could say as he 
did. If a creature were to volunteer to lay down his life, he 
would be a suicide. My life is not my own ; it is not at my own 
disposal ) I have no more right to lay it down than I have power 
to take it up. Therefore, he who could say, " I lay down my 
life," who chose to die, who voluntarily sacrificed himself, must 
be man indeed, otherwise he could not suffer, but more than man, 
the Lord of life, or he could not lay down his life. If Christ be 
not God, I have said, there could be no atonement ; to renounce 
his deity is to part with the atonement ; and if there be no atone- 
ment, what is the New Testament? — only a clearer law, a 
brighter and more intensely glowing Sinai, an improved edition 
of the Old. But how could it be worthy of the name of " good 
news" to let me see duty more vividly, to let me hear the curse 
upon disobedience more distinctly, and the promises of obedience 
more fully ? Such a revelation would not be comfort. I cannot 
obey the elder law, wrote in Sinai, or on my own conscience; I 
want not direction only, but remedy. The wounded traveller 
needs first to be healed, then to have the road pointed out to him. 
The dead need first to be quickened, then to be taught the 
direction in which they are to move. But there is an atonment, 
and he that made it is God over all. Jesus is our Sacrifice, our 
Saviour, our God. In the tears that trickled down that counte- 



358 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

nance, which was more marred than any man's, I can see spark- 
ling the very beams of the glory that dwelt between the cherubim. 
His pangs and his sorrows were not those of a patient martyr 
only, but those, in addition, of an atoning victim. I can see 
immensity in every act, infinity in every pang; atonement, re- 
paration, restoration, in all. The law sought the suffering of a 
man, and Jesus gave it the suffering of a G-od. He was David's 
son, and because he was so, he suffered; he was David's Lord, 
and because he was so, he satisfied while he suffered. Christ was 
God, God in our nature, and his death was atoning : " He was 
cut off, but not for himself." 

What joyful news are these ! One would think if people heard 
these things for the first time, they would almost electrify every 
heart with joy unutterable and full of glory. And yet these are 
the very good news. If these facts be as I have stated — and I 
have under-stated rather than over-stated the truth — what, then, 
may I infer ? If Christ be my Sacrifice, my Saviour, my Atone- 
ment, my all, then I shall never perish. It is as impossible that 
a sinner believing upon Jesus for the forgiveness of his sins can 
perish, as that a guilty being, without faith in Christ, can be 
happy for ever. There is no more guarantee that the lost out of 
Christ shall perish, than there is that the saved in Christ shall be 
happy. Believing on him, I have life for ever. Toward the 
procurement of the pardon of my sins I have nothing to suffer, 
for Christ has suffered all ; toward the purchase of my heaven, I 
have nothing to do, for Christ has done all. Whatever I suffer 
cannot be penal, for Christ has exhausted the penalty ; whatever 
I do cannot be meritorious, for Christ, the Lord, is all my 
righteousness — I am complete in Christ, wanting nothing. Jus- 
tice cannot punish twice: the law cannot exact twice: "he was 
cut off," — there was justice meted out to the Son of God — 
"but not for himself," — there is mercy to the sons of men. To 
them that are in Christ Jesus there is no condemnation in the 
height or the depth, in conscience, in law, anywhere, in the 
past, the present, the future — there is a perfect and glorious 
acquittal. 

Do you believe in this blessed Saviour? I do not mean that 
sham belief which can repeat the creed ; nor that belief which 



THE GREAT SACRIFICE. 359 

thinks all is right because we have been baptized; I mean that 
earnest, living, leaning trust, which feels, as its very life, that 
there is nothing in the whole universe on which and by which one 
can be saved but in Christ Jesus ; that faith that flees from a law 
that curses you, to a Saviour that blesses you : that faith that flees 
from self, with all its excuses, its accusations, its apologies, and 
sinfulness, and seeks peace through the blood of the everlasting 
covenant. 

Oh ! happy and safe is that mother's son who has this faith ; 
for to him there is no condemnation, and nothing shall be able to 
separate him from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus ! Act 
upon this faith ; regard its objects as realities : go forth into the 
world, acting upon it, and honouring God, accepting all he is 
and says as substance : " Them that honour me, I will honour/' * 
Confidence in Jesus is happiness to man and protection from God. f 
Suspicion of God is misery to the creature, and displeasing to his ^ 
Maker. 

If the atonement be thus complete, we have in this a right and 
scriptural view of the Lord's supper. What is the Lord's sup- 
per? It is a feast that follows the sacrifice. Let us revert to the 
Passover of old. There was first the slaughter of the lamb, which 
was the painful and the sacrificial part ; there was the eating the 
prepared flesh of the lamb, which was the joyful or the festival 
part. In the ancient Passover both had of necessity to be com- 
bined; the same parties who enjoyed the pleasure of the feast 
had to go through the pain, year after year, of sacrificing the 
victim ; but in our case these two have been divided ; our blessed 
Lord has monopolized the painful, and bequeathed the pleasing- 
only to us. The sacrifice is finished, the festival is continued 
daily; and we come this day to the Lord's table, not as to a pain- 
ful tragedy, in which we are to sympathize with the weeping and 
agonized sufferer, but to the glad festival that succeeds the sacri- 
fice, in which we are to participate with joyful and grateful recol- 
lections that Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. The 
eucharist is not a fast, but a feast ; not a sad and sorrowful sacri- 
fice, but a festival after the sacrifice, for which, and in which, glad 
hearts and grateful and happy songs and bright hopes become 
us; not sadness, not gloom, not painful sympathies. Humbled 



360 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

we may be, because of our sins ; but glad we must be that these 
sins are all forgiven and blotted out through him that died for us 
and rose again. By appearing at the feast after the sacrifice, we 
profess our trust in the efficacy of that sacrifice — our not being 
ashamed of him that offered it — our gratitude to God that such a 
sacrifice was provided in his infinite mercy; and we say, every 
time we communicate, that dumb, but eloquent and significant 
act, " Whoever may be ashamed of the crucified, I am not; who- 
ever may be ashamed of the cross, I glory in it : it is all my sal- 
vation, and all my desire. " Those sins that rise in painful 
reminiscences even after you have renounced them — that past life 
over which you have mourned and grieved, and the errors and 
sins which, by grace, you have repudiated and abjured for ever, 
may indeed humble you, but should not make you feel unsafe. 
Recollect the Passover. When the Israelite father had sprinkled 
the blood of the Lamb upon the threshold of his door, he retired 
into the inner-room, and, in that memorable night, gathered his 
family around him. No doubt, many an Israelite father, when he 
heard the rush of the angel's wing, as he swept with the speed 
of the lightning through every street, and alley, and court of 
Kahab, felt his heart throb rapidly within him, and feared that 
the next stroke of the angel might be upon his own fairest and 
first-born one. But his trembling did not make the angel enter ; 
not all his doubts, his fears, his suspicions, made the angel pause. 
The sprinkled blood was there : he minded not that there was a 
fainting, failing heart within ; and on he swept till he found a 
threshold where no blood was sprinkled. It is not the weakness 
of your faith that weakens your interest in Jesus ; it is not doubts, 
fears, suspicions, painful, sinful, unworthy as they are; your only 
safety in the whole universe is this — that the blood of sprinkling 
is on your hearts ; if it be there — faith in the atonement of Jesus 
— all is well, all is safe, safe as the very throne and being of God 
himself. 

You say, " How do I appropriate this blood ? I cannot take 
literal blood and sprinkle it on a literal threshold." You are not 
asked to do so. Moral things are not less true than material. 
Many philosophers say that the material is unreal, and that the 
moral alone is the real. What you are asked to do is this — to 



THE GREAT SACRIFICE. 361 

have faith in Jesus. But even that faith is not your Saviour. 
There is, I fear, a prevalent and very erroneous notion in this 
matter. The old formula was, " Do and live ;" the new formula 
many imagine in some degree the converse, " Believe and live." 
They think that as the old formula was doing God's will, and thus 
obtaining life, so the new one is faith, or believing God's word, 
and thus gaining eternal life. It is not so If it were, it would 
be substituting Tightness of creed for rightness of life ; and in 
both cases it would be something of the creature's own. The 
fact is, God requires at this moment just what he required of 
Adam in Paradise before he fell — a perfect obedience, or righte- 
ousness without flaw, or blemish, or short-coming in his sight. I 
say, the requirement that God makes in grace is just the require- 
ment that God made in Paradise — perfect obedience to the law. 
Do not think that the gospel is simply diluted law, and that the 
New Testament is simply a lower Old Testament ; that God will 
be satisfied with a sincere, though imperfect obedience, in the 
room of a perfect obedience. He demands now, as he ever de- 
manded, and as he will never cease to demand, a perfect righte- 
ousness as the only title to heaven. You ask, Where then is the 
difference between our state and Adam's ? In Adam's case it was 
his work ; in our case it is our acceptance. Adam had to do it ; 
we have to accept it as already done, already achieved, already 
perfected. It is faith's province simply to accept. Adam had to 
do, to be righteous, and be entitled to heaven ; we have to accept 
the righteousness Christ has provided, and thus be saved. Hence 
faith is not the ground of salvation : it is the eye that sees, the 
ear that hears, the feet that run, the hand that grasps ; it is the 
means, not the end. It believes that Christ was cut off, " but 
not for himself." And if he died for sinners, why not for me ? 
Not, " Why for me V but, " Why not for me ?" Thus resting 
and believing, it has peace with God through Jesus Christ. 



31 



362 



LECTURE XXV. 



THE MISSION OF THE MESSIAH. 



" Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to 
finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconcilia- 
tion for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the 
vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy." — Daniel ix. 24. 

I do not discuss the chronology of this prophecy in my pre- 
sent lecture; this I reserve for the next, in which I hope to de- 
monstrate, with irresistible conclusion, that Jesus Christ is the 
Messiah pointed out by the prophet, and that in him the predic- 
tion I have read is gloriously fulfilled. 

I have already shown that the prediction, " The Messiah shall 
be cut off, but not for himself/' was realized in Christ. I 
have now to prove that the prophecy, that he shall u finish the 
transgression, make an end of sin, make reconciliation for ini- 
quity, bring in everlasting righteousness, seal up the vision and 
the prophecy, and anoint the most Holy," has been fulfilled in 
the mission of the Lord Jesus Christ, and therein alone. And 
when I have shown that the moral import of the prophecy is ful- 
filled in him, and afterward that the chronology of the prophecy 
finds its termination also in him, I shall have given you the 
clearest possible demonstration, if any additional be required, 
first, that Jesus is the Messiah promised to the fathers, and, 
next, that Daniel spake as he was moved by the Holy Spirit of 
God. 

The first work which Christ is here predicted to accomplish is 
to u finish the transgression." By looking at the margins of 
your Bibles, you will see that the stricter and more accurate 
translation (for such the marginal translation always is) is, " to 
vestrmn transgression." "We are taught therefore, in this clause, 






THE MISSION OF THE MESSIAH. 3G3 

that one great effect of the mission of the Messiah will be to 
"restrain transgression." Its next result will be to make an 
end of sin; next, to make reconciliation for iniquity; next, to 
bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up the vision and the 
prophecy: and lastly, to anoint the most Holy. 

Let us contemplate the first — to restrain transgression. I re- 
strict myself here to the one view of his mission here specified 
— viz. its sin-restraining influence. It is not here said it shall 
be the result of his work to create holiness in the hearts of his 
own; this, it is true, is otherwise, and clearly stated; but it is 
declared that the effect of the mission of Jesus, of the word that 
he should preach to the people, and the work he should do for 
them, will be to restrain or curb transgression. Has not this 
been the historical result of Christianity, wherever it has been 
effectually proclaimed? On those who have not embraced its 
truths with saving faith, it has yet exercised a restrictive moral 
power that has made them, even in its twilight, different from 
what they would have been if Christianity had never been 
preached; — in other words, there is an indirect influence of the 
gospel, where its direct power is not felt, which has restrained, 
and still restrains the gross and palpable transgressions that de- 
graded and defiled mankind previous to its announcement, and 
still degrade those that are ignorant of it. It requires but the 
most superficial acquaintance with the history of the world to 
prove that it is so. Before the introduction of Christianity, 
weak and deformed children were invariably cast out to perish in 
the streets; and this not in barbarous, but in civilized and culti- 
vated lands. What has arrested this ? Not civilization; for the 
Roman code is so civilized that it has been more or less widely 
adopted by numerous modern nations. It was the restraints, or 
the indirect influence of Christianity alone. In heathen and in 
ancient times, fathers had absolute power over their sons, and, if 
possible, still more over their daughters ; they might sell them, 
or dismiss them, as they might their slaves. In ancient and 
heathen times, a husband's power over his wife was despotic; he 
might dismiss her for the least offence; he might have put her 
to death, and it would not have been murder. In ancient times 
the marriage contract had not half its sacredness, nor a tithe of 



364 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

the force it has now. Woman was degraded; her position in 
society was lower than it is easy to conceive. What has raised 
her to her proper and natural position? Christianity. What 
has saved the son from the tyranny of a cruel parent ; the wife 
from expulsion or cruelty by a barbarous husband, and woman 
from degradation everywhere? The restraints, the indirect re- 
strictions and influence, of the gospel of Jesus. Where, let me 
ask, is the greatest mental, civil, and religious freedom ? Where 
do nations attain their greatest splendour, and communities their 
highest social power? Where, also, let me ask, are their hospi- 
tals for the sick — asylums for the wretched — charities for the 
needy? These were not known in heathen lands, or in ancient 
times. Where is life safest in our streets by day, and property 
most secure by night ? Where are revolutions least feared or 
least likely ? Where can you leave your children with the great- 
est confidence and hope, and with the least risk of contamina- 
tion, behind you? Where are the laws least sanguinary, rulers 
least unjust, magistrates least tyrannical, judges most impartial, 
the people most obedient, the press most pure? Just where 
there is the greatest number of Christians, and the indirect 
lights and influences of Christianity are most widely diffused and 
most thoroughly felt. 

It has been one effect of the gospel to " restrain transgres- 
sion." The very twilight of Christianity is glorious; and if its 
twilight be so, how glorious will be its noon ! how desirable its 
approaching meridian splendour! Those men who refuse the 
gospel are themselves monuments of its indirect influence. Fa- 
milies in which the Bible is not read, in which God is not wor- 
shipped, are enjoying that protection under the overshadowing 
wings of that public peace which the spread of the gospel has 
created in the minds, and left on the habits of mankind; and if 
it be not saving in such cases, it is beyond all expression sweeten- 
ing and cementing. Society at this moment, except where the 
gospel is its cement, is a rope of sand, ready to fly asunder the 
moment that the coercive, mechanical restraints of rulers and of 
laws are withdrawn. The secret of our country's safety is in 
our Bible; the spring of our country's peace, when all Europe 
was an Aceldama, was in the Bible. The indirect influence of 



THE MISSION OF THE MESSIAH. 365 

Christianity has made our laws so mild — our people so attached 
to peace — our rulers just, and our exactors righteous. Its first 
predicted effect, then, is to " restrain transgression." 

The second predicted effect of the gospel is " to mahe an end 
of sin." Literally translated, the clause reads, "to seal up sin;" 
and hence some commentators think it means to consummate the 
iniquity of the Jews, and so to spare them them no longer; that 
the crucifixion of the Messiah should be the last drop in their 
cup, which was previously almost full, — the last weight in the 
scale, which already was so heavy, — the climax, as it were, of 
their crimes ; and thus, after having murdered the prophets, they 
were destined to complete their depravity by murdering the pro- 
phets' Lord. Then God's long-suffering would be exhausted — 
his forbearance spent, and to that people the menaced curse 
should cleave, consuming to the time of the end, and only be 
lifted away when they shall " look upon him whom they have 
pierced, and mourn every family apart." But this seems to me 
not the natural interpretation. It appears much more natural to 
understand it as the mission which should make an end of sin in 
the case of all believers; that is, put it away, finish, or destroy 
it. Is not this the direct effect of the gospel of Christ? 
" There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." 
Christ exhausted the curse in the case of every believer, and 
shed down the blessing in its stead; the sting of the curse is ex- 
tracted — its havoc is arrested; and from living beneath the 
curse that oppresses and irritates, the believer lives beneath the 
outspread wings of perfect peace and everlasting happiness. 
This makes a vast difference between the saint and the sinner. 

Let me suppose two men, placed in equal outward calamity, a 
believer and an unbeliever, or to use plainer phraseology, a man 
who is a Christian, and one who is not. Let the outward eye look 
at them : they both weep ; both feel pain — they both declare that 
they feel it ; they both desire to be delivered : yet between these 
two Glod's eye sees, and there actually is, a very great difference. 
In the case of the one, all the suffering is paternal chastisement ; 
every drop of the bitter cup that he drinks is instinct with the 
sweetness of the everlasting covenant; his outward suffering, 
even when it is bitterest, is merely the chalice of an inward be- 

31* 



366 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

nediction, and the heaviest blow that smites him only helps him 
more rapidly to his everlasting and his blessed home ; all things 
work for good to him, because in his case Christ has made an end 
of sin, by bearing in his own body its curse, and bequeathing to 
his people his peace. But in the case of the other sufferer — in 
the case of him who is not a Christian, all is penal : he suffers 
just because he has sinned ; every billow that rolls over him has 
received its impulse and its tone from Mount Sinai ; every pang 
in his heart is the rebound of a broken law; every stroke that 
falls upon him is the infliction of Grod the Legislator, jealous of 
his glory and upholding the sanctions of his law. In the one 
case, Christ has made an end of sin, and, therefore, all suffering 
is paternal; in the other case, there is no obstruction to the full 
influence of the curse — nothing to neutralize its virus, or mitigate 
its effects. To the outward eye, they weep and suffer alike ) but 
in the sight of God the difference is between the commencement 
of the enjoyment of everlasting heaven and the commencement 
of the endurance of everlasting hell. 

If Christ, then, has made an end of sin — that is, of its curse 
— by being the sacrifice and atonement for it, does not this teach 
us that we need no other atonement, or expiation, or sacrifice, in 
order to be delivered thereby from the curse of sin ? If Christ, 
by his death, has made an end of sin by exhausting its curse, 
we do not need any other expiation, or atonement, or sacrifice 
whatever. No ecclesiastical liquidation of liabilities incurred is 
possible any more : no mortification of the flesh can be an expia- 
tion for the indulgence of its lusts ; no atonement caai be made 
for being late at the opera on Saturday night by being early at 
the mass on Sunday morning : a Christian has no taste for the 
one, and he has no confidence in the efficacy of the other. In 
tears there is no expiation, in sufferings there is no atonement, in a 
martyr's blood there is no expiatory virtue. Christ has made an 
end of sin ; and we need no priests to offer, for what does not 
exist, what is, when materially precious, morally worthless, nor 
sacrifices to be made for what is not. Christ has finished the 
work, and made an end of sin for ever. "It is finished," was the 
death-knell of Levi — the joyous sound of salvation. 

The believer, therefore, receives in the gospel the tidings of a 



THE MISSION OF THE MESSIAH. 367 

work that is done for him, not the withering demand of a work 
that is to be done by him. The call to a Christian is not to make 
his peace with God, as ignorant persons often foolishly say, but 
to accept Christ as his peace with God ; and thus they twain that 
were several are made one for ever. There is no more offering 
for sin. But this expression of the prophet, thus descriptive of 
the work of Christ, may not only imply that Christ made an end 
of sin by being the atonement for it, and taking away its curse ; 
but also that, in the case of every believer, he makes an end of 
the domination and power of sin in his heart, his life, and his 
conduct. This he does by giving the Holy Spirit to them that 
ask him. I need not tell you that it is just as necessary that we 
should be delivered from the domination and pollution of sin as that 
we should be delivered from its curse and condemnation. We must 
be fitted for heaven by the Spirit's work in us, as truly as entitled 
to heaven by Christ's work without us, and his righteousness 
upon us. If there be announced the performance of an oratorio, 
and you receive a ticket of admission to it, in that ticket you have 
your right to be admitted ; but if you have no chamber in your 
ear susceptible of the influence of sweet sounds, that oratorio 
would be a Babel to you, and thus in your case there would be 
no fitness for it. You need not only the ticket that admits, but 
the susceptibility that qualifies you for the enjoyment. It is so 
with heaven : you need not only Christ's righteousness, or his 
making an end of the curse, to be your title of admission, but 
you need also the Spirit's influence in transforming your nature 
and elevating your taste, to be your fitness. In other words, we 
believe in a Trinity : in God the Father, who elects us ; in God 
the Son, who redeems us ; in God the Spirit, who sanctifies and 
fits us for heaven. 

But apart from this, I see in Christ's work not only the 
promised gift of the Spirit, but also, in the very nature of his 
intervention, that which will create in my heart love for his holy 
law. I see in Christ the embodiment of infinite and disinterest- 
ed love; I see in him the spectacle of love suffering, dying for 
me ; and this sight of pardoning love in Christ Jesus produces 
thankful love in me for whom that pardon is procured. It comes 
to pass that I love him, just because I feel that he loved me; and 



368 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

" love," wg are told, " is tlie fulfilling of the law." " Thou shalt 
love," is the guarantee that the whole law shall be fulfilled. I 
love Christ's person, his precepts, his promises, his example; and 
thus progressive holiness in my life, or love with its glorious 
fruitage, grows and develops itself upon the basis of perfect par- 
don secured through Christ. There is planted in my heart an 
offshoot from the cross, a living and expansive principle that, 
under the blessing of the Spirit of God, carries me on from grace 
to grace, and from one degree of conformity to his image to 
another, till I reach the fulness of the stature of a perfect man. 
Thus Christ, by his atonement, makes an end of the curse of sin, 
and sets me free from its action and its effects; and by the em- 
bodiment of disinterested love, manifested in his mission, he 
creates responsive love in my heart, and so makes an end in me 
of the power of sin. Yfhat Jesus does in the case of the indi- 
vidual, he shall one day accomplish over the whole world. The 
earth shall emerge from its last baptismal fire, beautiful as at first. 
Sin, the fever that racks and convulses the air, the sea, and all 
that is around us, shall be laid for ever, and sorrowing nature 
cease to weep, and begin to rejoice. She shall exchange her 
ashen garments for her coronation robes, passing under another 
and more glorious Genesis, and presenting a dwelling-place for 
the glorified spirits and the resurrection bodies of them that have 
washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the 
Lamb. Even now, as the gospel spreads, sin loses its footing 
and its dominant power upon the earth • like a wounded snake, 
its life is protracted but in torment. 

But not only is he foretold to make an end of sin, but also to 
make u reconciliation for iniquity." "What is implied in this ? 
The apostle tells us in the Epistle to the Hebrews, that a in all 
things it behooved Christ to be made like unto his brethren, that 
he might be a merciful and faithful high-priest in things pertain- 
ing to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people." 
So also, in his Epistle to the Romans — " By whom we have re- 
ceived the atonement (y.araXXayyjv — the reconciliation)." But it 
may be justly asked, In -what sense did Christ make reconcilia- 
tion ? There is no allusion here to the reconciliation of man to 
God j there is, therefore, some sense in which God may be said 



THE MISSION OF THE MESSIAH 369 

to be reconciled to us. In what sense can this truly be said ? 
for, at first, it seems unnatural. It does not imply that God's 
hate is changed into love, or that his anger is changed into affec- 
tion, in consequence of what Christ has done; much less is it 
implied that his purpose to destroy is dislodged by a purpose to 
save, through the atonement, in the case of those who are inte- 
rested in Christ, and plead the sacrifice made on the cross. 
This would be to pronounce the unchangeable God subject to 
change. 

In what sense, then, can it be said that God is reconciled to 
us ? Plainly, it means that every obstruction is removed to the 
egress of God's pardoning love to mankind; that is, the law, 
which is the written exponent of his holy and eternal will, is 
magnified, and honoured, and glorified, in Christ, our head ; and, 
by reason of what Christ has done, God can now as reasonably 
acquit the sinner that believes in Christ, as he can condemn the 
sinner that does ngt. God is, in Christ, just to pardon. He can 
consistently save sinners. The justice, holiness, and truth of 
Christ, stereotyped in law, not only do not obstruct the descent 
of God's mercy to forgive me, but, on the contrary, form them- 
selves into a glorious channel for its egress ; so much so, that 
there is no more reason why God should condemn a sinner, in the 
first Adam, than there is why he should justify and save a sinner, 
in the second Adam. There is no more reason, no more justice, 
in assigning everlasting misery to any of those that fell and sin- 
ned in Adam, than there is in assigning everlasting heaven to 
those who are justified and accepted in Christ. God justly con- 
demns all that are out of Christ; and he no less justly pardons 
and saves all that are found in Christ. Hence the words, " He 
is faithful and just to forgive us" (not simply merciful, but faith- 
ful and just to forgive us) " our sins, and to cleanse us from all 
unrighteousness." Through that reconciliation made for sin, I 
can feel toward God, and toward his holy law, and toward his jus- 
tice and his truth, just as if I had never sinned ; I can think of 
God, of the denunciation of sin, and of the glories of heaven, and 
of the judgment-seat and its endless retributions, just as if I were 
perfectly innocent, and had never sinned — with this additional 
peculiarity, that I cherish a responsive love and gratitude such as 



370 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

I had never cherished if I had never fallen. Christ thus died to 
make reconciliation for sin. 

In the next place, it is prophesied that he should bring in ever- 
lasting righteousness. Making reconciliation by his death, is 
Christ's passive work ; bringing in everlasting righteousness by 
his obedience, is Christ's active work. In the one — that is, in 
his death, and sacrifices, and making reconciliation — he suffered 
all that man had incurred as a sinner ; in his active righteous- 
ness, or obedience to the law, he did all that man owed to God 
as a creature. I feel that I am a sinner, and that sin is the 
transgression of the law : I look to what he suffered, that that sin 
may not be my ruin. I feel also I owe obedience to a perfect law, 
which still says, " Thou shalt :" I look to Christ, my head, in 
whom and by whom that law was obeyed for me, and I feel that 
I can be justified. By his reconciliation for sin, he puts away 
sin, so that its curse, the curse of a broken law, shall never light 
upon me. By his righteousness, or active obedience, he clothes 
me with a righteousness that answers all the demands of a law 
that exacts perfect obedience of me. So that I can stand in God's 
sight, and feel that I not only deserve no curse, but that, in 
Christ, I deserve everlasting joy ; for the Messiah, the Prince, my 
Head and Substitute, has obeyed the law in my room and stead. 
We can never appreciate the gospel in all its fulness, or be saved 
from the popular and predominant errors of the day, till we feel 
this in its completeness, that by Christ's shed blood we are com- 
pletely delivered from all the penal consequences of sin, and there- 
fore need no other expiation, were it possible ; and by Christ's 
active obedience, or righteousness, we are entitled to all the re- 
wards that Adam would have inherited, and more, if he had per- 
fectly obeyed, and therefore need no additional merits. What a 
glorious Saviour is this ! What a complete salvation is here ! 
He restrains transgression in the mass of mankind ! he puts an 
end to sin, by putting an end to its curse ; he makes reconcilia- 
tion for sin, by bearing our chastisement upon him ; and he brings 
in everlasting righteousness, that makes us altogether spotless be- 
fore God : so that, looking by faith to this greater than paschal 
Lamb; beholding this sacrifice, so transcending the victims of 
Levi ; washed in this blood, which has virtues the blood of bulls 



THE MISSION OF THE MESSIAH. 371 

and goats and heifers made no claim to ; arrayed in this right- 
eousness, in which Omniscience can see no stain, we can lay 
aside all our sad recollections and sorrowful forebodings, and ask, 
in triumphant tones, " Who shall lay any thing to my charge ? 
It is God that justifieth. Who shall condemn me? It is Christ ' 
that died — yea, rather, who is risen again. For I am persuaded 
that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor 
depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate me from 
the love of God which is in Christ Jesus my Lord." In Christ 
I am complete. In his righteousness I am perfect before God. 
I shall stand in heaven, for ever tasting all the blessedness, and 
Christ for ever receiving all the glory of it. Not one thread in 
that perfect robe is mine ; and yet not one blessing it entitles to 
shall be withheld from me. My song shall be the expression of 
my enjoyment of all the results, and the giving of all the glory 
unto him to whom alone it is due. 

The next end of Christ's mission is here foretold to be to seal 
up the vision and the prophecy. This plainly means to illustrate 
in his person the glories of ancient prophecies ; to be in himself a 
perfect embodiment of all those predictions contained in the Bible, 
from the first in Genesis to the last in Malachi, which relate to 
the Messiah, so that in him shall meet and mingle Moses, Isaiah, 
David, and all the prophets. We find him explaining the fulfil- 
ment of this very clause, though he does not allude to it by name, 
when he said to his disciples, (Luke xxiv. 26, 27,) " Ought not 
Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory ? 
And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto 
them in all the scriptures the thiDgs concerning himself." And 
he again says to them, (ver. 44,) " These are the words which I 
spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be 
fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the pro- 
phets, and in the Psalms, concerning me." Plainly, therefore, 
as I might demonstrate at length, all that was predicted respect- 
ing the person, work, sufferings, trials, achievements, and glory, 
of the Messiah, were, and are, and will yet fully be, realized in 
him. When Christ cried upon the cross, " It is finished," Moses 



372 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

and the prophets, and the Psalms, gathered round him, and added 
their united and their solemn Amen. In whom was the prophecy 
fulfilled, " The woman's seed shall bruise the serpent's head ?" 
In Christ. In whom was the prophecy fulfilled, " The sceptre 
shall not depart from Judah till Shiloh come V In Christ. In 
whom was the prophecy fulfilled, " His name shall be called Won- 
derful, the Counsellor, the mighty God, the Father of the age to 
come, the Prince of peace ?" In Christ. Was not the biography 
of Christ the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah made actual ? Was not 
Christ the true crucifix of which it is the description ? Who is 
the prophet whom Moses said God would raise up unto himself, 
and whom the people should hear ? Christ Jesus, as stated by 
the apostle in his address, given in the Acts of the Apostles. His 
life, his death, his birthplace, the time of his birth, his suf- 
ferings, his joys, the nature and peculiarities of his death, his 
burial, his resurrection, his coming glory, were all predicted, 
and all find their perfect embodiment in him. He alone seals 
up the vision, and terminates in himself the prophecies that 
relate to him. 

To anoint the most Holy is the last clause of this prophecy. 
Who is this most Holy ? The word is in the masculine gender, 
and means, properly, " the most Holy One." But who is the 
most Holy One ? We are told in the Gospels over and over again : 
"I know thee," said the unclean spirits, "thou art the Holy One 
of God." The apostle said to the Jews, " Ye denied the Holy 
One." Paul said to the Hebrews, u Such a high-priest became 
us, who is holy." In the epistle to the church at Philadelphia 
we read : " These things saith he that is holy." The " Holy 
One," therefore, was Christ Jesus. What is meant by " anoint- 
ing" him ? We have this explained by referring to the other 
prophecies relating to him. In Isaiah lxi. we read : " The Spirit 
of the Lord God is upon me ; because the Lord hath anointed me 
to preach good tidings unto the meek ; he hath sent rne to bind 
up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives." We 
find our Lord showing that he is himself the Anointed Holy One, 
when he takes the very prophecy of Isaiah (Luke iv. 11) and ap- 
plies it to himself: " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because 



THE MISSION OF THE MESSIAH. 373 

lie hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor : he hath 
sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the 
captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty 
them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. 
And he closed the book, and gave it to the minister, and sat down. 
And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fast- 
ened on him. And he began to say, This day is this scripture 
fulfilled in your ears." 

We have the very same prediction in its echo in Heb. i. 8 : 
" But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, Glod, is for ever and 
ever : a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. 
Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore G-od, 
even thy G-od, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above 
thy fellows." When we go back to the Levitical economy, we 
find all the priests were anointed and consecrated to their sacred 
functions by a holy oil, which it was blasphemy to imitate. The 
prediction, therefore,' plainly refers to the Messiah, who, in the 
Epistle to the Hebrews, is said to be a " great High-Priest, who 
was touched with a feeling of our infirmities, and who ever liveth 
to make intercession for us." I need not tell you that the word 
Messiah means " the Anointed One." Hence Andrew said. to 
Peter, " We have found the Messias, which is, being inter- 
preted, 6 Xpcffrdq," — the Anointed one. You have heard of the 
chrism used in Roman Catholic churches; it means anointing, 
and is derived from the same root as the word Christ, which 
means "anointed." When, then, Andrew says to Peter, "We 
have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ," 
he intimated that the prediction of Daniel is fulfilled; as 
if he had said : "He who was to come to make an end of sin, 
to bring in everlasting righteousness, and is the anointed high- 
priest foretold by Daniel, is now come, and we have found 
him." 

I think, now, that this contrast between the facts as fulfilled 
and narrated in the New Testament Scriptures, and these predic- 
tions of the Old Testament, clearly and irrefragably prove that 
all these find their embodiment and perfect realization in the 
"'Lamb of Grod that taketh away the sins of the world." Show 

32 



374 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

me any one, in all the history of the past, since five hundred 
years before Christ, when Daniel wrote this, downward to the 
year in which we now live, in whom this prediction has been, or 
can be demonstrated to be completely, or even partially, realized. 
Has any one, in all that period of two thousand years and up- 
ward, restrained transgressions throughout the world by his doc- 
trine and his name ? Has any one " made an end of sin/' in any 
sense, or as I have explained to you? Has any one made a 
(C reconciliation for sin," "brought in everlasting righteousness," 
" sealed up" all the predictions relating to himself, and been 
anointed the " Holy One of God V None but Jesus of Nazareth. 
All the prophets point to Jesus ; all the Psalms celebrate him ; he 
is the Key that unlocks them all ; and in him all is found to be 
harmony, order, consistency, and truth. I have no more doubt 
that Christ is the Messiah, God manifest in the flesh, our only 
Sacrifice, our only Priest, and Prophet, and Eternal King, than I 
have that there is a sun in the firmament, or tides in the ocean. 
It is the plainest of all facts, it is the clearest of all truths, it is 
the deepest of all convictions. We know in whom we have be- 
lieved, and that he is able to keep that we have committed to him 
against that day. 

I ask now, in conclusion, have you, my dear friends, any per- 
sonal interest in this ? Is this a theory demonstrated before you, 
or good news welcome to your hearts ? Is Christianity any thing 
to you beyond a topic for the preacher's sermon, or a source for 
the supply of names for your children, or a respectable profession 
in society? Can you say from those seats, " Lord, I bless and 
praise thee, that thou didst make reconciliation for sin, that thou 
hast brought in everlasting righteousness, that thou art the 
anointed High-Priest that ever liveth to make intercession for 
me • — I bless thee, I praise thee J — my hopes of heaven, my pros- 
pects of joy, all cluster about thy cross, centre in thy person, and 
come from thy deep love j — thanks be to God for his unspeakable 
gift, the Lord Jesus Christ ?" Very awful is that man's respon- 
sibility who hears these truths and despises them — who knows 
these truths and neglects them. Your greatest condemnation will 
not be a broken law, but a neglected gospel, a rejected Saviour. 



THE MISSION OF THE MESSIAH. 375 

There is no reason in the height or in the depth, in the law or in 
the gospel, why a siDgle soul in this assembly should perish for 
ever. G od waits to welcome you ; Christ waits to receive you ; 
the Spirit waits to sanctify you : and it will be the corroding re- 
collection of the lost in misery, " I did it all myself, and nobody 
did it for me m " as it will be the joyous impression and never- 
ceasing song of the redeemed in glory, " We did none of it ; 
Christ did it all from first to last." 



376 



LECTURE XXVI. 



SACRED ARITHMETIC. 



" Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to 
finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation 
for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision 
and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy." — Daniel ix. 2-i. 

I HAVE addressed you on the grand characteristic of the death 
of Jesus. I showed you in two successive discourses, that the 
death of Jesus — his being "cut off, but not for himself " — was 
expiatory, or atoning. I showed that it was the evidence of a 
creature that he died, and the evidence of a God that he died a 
substitute for us ; that it was his shame that he suffered, but it 
was his glory that he satisfied ; and that because the Messiah was 
cut off, and cut off for us, we have redemption through his blood, 
even the forgiveness of sins. I then showed you, last Lord's-day 
evening, the meaning of that most beautiful summary of the great 
results of the death of Jesus embodied in Dan. ix. 24, (the epi- 
tome of which was all that I was able to give you,) — namely, 
that Christ should " finish the transgression, make an end of sins, 
make reconciliation for iniquity, bring in everlasting righteousness, 
seal up the vision and the prophecy, and anoint the most Holy/' 
What remains is indicated in the passage I have read this even- 
ing. It is not the most interesting, because it is the most arith- 
metical; yet it is the most conclusive evidence that Jesus of 
Nazareth, who was born in Bethlehem, died upon the cross, rose 
again for our justification, lives and reigns our Prince and Inter- 
cessor, is the Messiah promised to the fathers, and that Daniel 
here clearly and demonstrably predicted him. 

When a prophet gives us dates and numbers, if his prophecy 
be false, it is the easiest possible of detection; if, on the other 
hand, his prophecy be true, it is easily capable of proof. Daniel 






SACRED ARITHMETIC. 377 

has given us numbers j he has not only given us those grand 
characteristic features of the life and death of Chffst which 
demonstrably prove that he is the Messiah, (for in none before 
him, and in none since have these characteristic features been 
actualized,) but he has also given us an exact calculation of the 
time that should intervene between a given terminus a quo, or 
commencing period, and a given terminus ad quod, or a closing 
period. The prophet says that between these, seventy weeks 
should intervene. His words are distinct and definite. Let u.s 
then investigate the proofs of this exact prophecy, and see if it 
has been fulfilled, as generally supposed, in the age, appearance, 
life, and death of the Son of God. 

I admit that there have been disputes whether the close of the 
seventy weeks refers to the time of the birth of Christ, or the 
manifestation of Christ, or the death of Christ, or the extinction 
of the Jewish polity; for all these are more or less alluded to. 
But one fact will strike you as incontestible — that if we take the 
longest period to which the seventy weeks can be extended, or 
the shortest period within which they can have expired, it must 
be equally certain, that if the Messiah, the Prince who was to 
make reconciliation for iniquity, and bring in everlasting righte- 
ousness, has not come, the prophecy is null, and no Messiah, 
according to its terms, can be expected. Either the Jews are 
unbelievers, or Christians are deceived. The shorter period with- 
in which the time can expire, minus the last week, which occurs 
after the appearance of Christ, may be — nay, I believe must be 
— the manifestation of Christ as a preacher, as the anointed pro- 
phet, as I shall show you by-and-by. The remotest moment at 
which the seventy weeks can possibly be said to expire, must be 
the overthrow and destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, which I 
believe is not the time referred to. If the Messiah expected by 
the Jew, predicted by Daniel, delineated so distinctly by the 
sacred pen, has not come within these extreme periods, these 
ultimate limits, then Daniel predicted what was false, and one of 
the most striking pillars of the truth of the inspiration of Daniel, 
and of the fact of the Messiahship of Jesus, is swept from be- 
neath the fabric of Christianity. 

That the Christ is actually come, and is Jesus of Nazareth, I 

32* 



378 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

showed you might be proved from the identity of his character 
with the features here given. I have often thought that when 
Andrew said to Peter, "We have found the Messias, which is, 
being interpreted, the Christ/' he had this very passage of Daniel 
before him. "Here is the Messiah," (as if he had said,) "the 
Prince, the Anointed One. Here" (said Andrew) " is the fulfil- 
ment of Daniel's prophecy; we have found the Messiah, which is 3 
being interpreted in our Greek tongue, the Christ," — in English, 
the Anointed One. Therefore it was that Andrew's speech was 
the echo of Daniel's prophecy ; and God was showing in his bio- 
graphy what he had inspired in Daniel's prophecy. I may add, 
too, as an interesting collateral fact, that almost all the Jews 
were in expectation that the Messiah would appear about 1850 
year ago j and even some heathen writers allude to the prevalence 
of such a rumour and belief among the Jews; and add, that 
they calculated that periods of prophecy expired about that time. 
We have the remains of Jewish testimonies, that just about the 
time that Christ came, they were expecting that the Messiah 
would come; and you will find that, though they rejected Christ, 
they were so full of the expectancy of the Messiah, that pre- 
tended Messiahs were constantly appearing, professing to be such, 
and were often followed by crowds of temporary adherents. I 
mention this to show the all but universal belief that great 
chronological epochs had then expired, and that in consequence 
of this and from the knowledge of it, the great heart of Judaism 
was big with expectancy of a glorious and speedy deliverer. 
Many pretenders to the Messiahship were no disproof of the 
claims of Jesus ; just as many pseudo-gospels are no disproof of 
the truth and authenticity of the Gospels of Matthew and John 
The arithmetical calculations on which I must now enter may in 
one sense be thought dry and uninteresting as elements of a 
popular address, yet they are possessed of great importance. If 
the Spirit of God thought it was useful to direct Daniel thus to 
write, it is unworthy of us to say it is too dry for the minister to 
preach, and too dull for the hearer to investigate. It is not sun- 
shine, but truth that we are to seek after. My dear friends, what- 
ever God has written, man should read; whatever God has thought 
proper to communicate, man is not only warranted, but commanded 



SACRED ARITHMETIC. 379 

to investigate, and authorized to expect to understand. But 
it is very interesting to know, and truly exemplary for us, that 
while Daniel is giving these dry technical numbers — the seven 
weeks, and sixty-two weeks, and one week, or the seventy weeks 
so constantly referred to — he does not do so without embodying in 
the very heart of arithmetic what is so precious, and to ministers 
so valuable a precedent, one of the clearest portraits of the 
atonement of our Lord and its glorious effects, probably, contained 
in the whole Scriptures of truth; so clear, that if you did not 
know that it was written in Daniel, and were to hear me read it for 
the first time, that Christ as your reconciliation for sin, made an 
end of sin, and brought in everlasting righteousness, you would say, 
" These must be the words of Paul, Peter, or John;" not a pro- 
phecy, but a record, or inspired description of Jesus of Nazareth. 
The words of the prophet are, " Seventy weeks are determined." 
Now, do these weeks mean literal weeks, or are they symbolical 
weeks ? Are they strictly literal, or what has been called pro- 
phetic weeks? If the decision rested on mere conjecture, the 
prophecy would be so far comparatively inexplicable ; but you 
will find that it was a frequent, almost universal habit of the 
ancient penmen in the Old Testament Scriptures, in certain 
descriptions, to speak of years under the symbol of days. For 
instance, so early as in Genesis we find Moses thus describing 
the ages of the patriarchs : "All the days that Adam lived were 
nine hundred and thirty years." In Leviticus xxv. 8, we read : 
"And thou shalt number seven Sabbaths of years unto thee, 
seven times seven years." The Jubilee occurred at the end of 
forty-nine years. Seven times seven makes forty-nine. There- 
fore seven weeks in prophetic language, in Jewish reckoning, 
mean, not seven literal, but seven prophetic weeks, or seven times 
seven prophetic days, that is, forty-nine literal years, at the end 
of which, as we know, the jubilee always occurred. So again, 
in G-enesis, (chap. xxix. 27,) as if to confirm the justness of this 
interpretation, we read these words : " Fulfil her week, and we 
will give thee this also, for the service which thou shalt serve 
with me yet seven other years" — the week here being the symbol, 
or the equivalent of seven years. Another very remarkable 
passage confirmatory of this interpretation is contained in JEzekiel 



380 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

iv. 6, where we have these words : " And when thou hast accom- 
plished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the 
iniquity of the house of Judah forty days :" — now that is the 
simple statement; then there is added, "I have appointed thee 
each day for a year," — that is, forty years was the actual period 
symbolized under the prophetic language of forty days. It is 
plain, therefore, that it is not by rash conjecture that I interpret 
the seventy weeks as meaning seventy weeks of years, but it is 
upon the basis of God's authority. He gives us the precedent of 
accepting in prophetic interpretation the day for the year. Be- 
sides, if the period of Daniel were seventy literal weeks, there 
would be nothing to correspond with its termination. I do not 
say this alone is a conclusive argument : I merely state it as con- 
firmatory of what I have advanced. It may be shown to be 
historically impossible that seventy literal weeks from any one 
period here indicated could end in the advent of any one that 
could by possibility be interpreted to be the Messiah. I there- 
fore conclude, I think justly, that the seventy weeks of Daniel 
are seventy weeks of years, each day being taken for a year, 
seven prophetic days in a prophetic week make seven literal years. 
Seventy prophetic weeks, therefore, will be seventy times seven 
prophetic days, or literal years — i. e. 490 years. The prediction, 
therefore, is expressed, that from some given period, or as I have 
called it, a terminus a quo, to another fixed period, the terminus 
act quod, or to the Messiah's manifestation and confirming of the 
covenant, will be 490 years. 

But you will notice in proceeding, that the seventy weeks, or 490 
years, are divided by the prophet into three periods, in each period 
of which some one great transaction is to take place. Inverse 25, 
we read, "Know, therefore, that from the going forth of the com- 
mandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the 
Prince shall be seven weeks," [then] " and three score and two 
weeks:" [these being sections of «ne period of seventy weeks, 
and forming together sixty-nine weeks.] "And the street shall 
be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. " Then, 
"And after three score and two weeks" [starting from the termi- 
nation of the first seven weeks] " shall Messiah be cut off. " Then, 
for one week additional to the sixty-nine he shall confirm the 



SACRED ARITHMETIC. 381 

covenant. The whole period, then, is divided into three great 
sections ; that is, the whole seventy weeks is divided into seven 
weeks, sixty-two weeks, and one week, which three numbers 
amount to seventy weeks. In the first seven weeks, the city was to 
be built ; at the end of the next division, or sixty-two weeks, the 
Messiah was to be manifested, and in the middle of the last week he 
was to be cut off, and during the remainder of it to confirm the cove- 
nant, while in the midst of the same week he was to cause the sacri- 
fice to cease. In the first seven weeks the city was to be built, in 
the sixty -two weeks the Messiah was to be manifested, in the middle 
of the remaining week the Messiah was to be cut off. The seven 
weeks are equal to 49 years, the sixty-two weeks are equal to 434 
years, and the one week is equal to seven years, making a total 
of 490 years, which I have already specified. We have thus then 
all the details of this question before us. The first difficulty which 
occurs, if it be a difficulty, which I scarcely think, though there 
has been dispute about it, is, what is the commencing epoch of the 
seventy weeks ? The words employed are, " Know therefore, and 
understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to 
restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall 
be seven weeks, and three score and two weeks :" that is, the two 
put together, forty-nine years and 434 years ; these two periods 
having elapsed, then the Messiah the Prince should be manifested. 
I pass by much, after which, as we shall subsequently see, was to 
occur m Jerusalem the overspreading of the abomination, the city 
and the sanctuary with a flood. 

Let me then look at the first period of seven week, i. e. forty- 
nine years, of the three into which the seventy weeks or 490 years 
are divided. The commencing period is from the going forth of 
the commandment to build Jerusalem. When was this command- 
ment given ? There have been but four great commands or edicts 
that have respectively been supposed to be the commencing epoch. 
There are but four, I say, that it is possible to suppose, or that 
have been supposed to have been the commencing epoch. The 
first was by Cyrus, during the first year of his reign in Babylon, 
at the end of the seventy years' captivity, as recorded in Ezra i. 
" Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of 
the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord 



382 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a pro- 
clamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, 
saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, the Lord God of heaven 
hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth ; and he hath charged 
me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who 
is there among you of all his people ? his Grod he with him, and 
let him go up to Jerusalem, which is Judah, and build the house 
of the Lord Grod of Israel, (he is the Grod,) which is in Jerusalem. 
And whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth, let 
the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with 
goods, and with beasts, beside the freewill offering for the house 
of Grod that is in Jerusalem. Then rose up the chief of the fathers 
of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites, with all 
them whose spirit Grod had raised, to go up to build the house of 
the Lord which is in Jerusalem. And all they that were about 
them strengthened their hands with vessels of silver, with gold, 
with goods, and with beasts, and with precious things, beside all 
that was willingly offered. Also Cyrus the king brought forth 
the vessels of the house of the Lord, which Nebuchadnezzar 
had brought forth out of Jerusalem, and had put them in the 
house of his gods ; even those did Cyrus king of Persia bring 
forth by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, and numbered 
them unto Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah. And this is the 
number of them : thirty chargers of gold, a thousand chargers 
of silver, nine and twenty knives, thirty basins of gold, silver 
basins of a second sort four hundred and ten, and other vessels a 
thousand. All the vessels of gold and of silver were five thousand 
and four hundred. All these did Sheshbazzar bring up with them 
of the captivity that were brought up from Babylon unto Jeru- 
salem." On reading the whole of this chapter carefully, you will 
perceive that this commission is to rebuild the temple of Jerusalem. 
The second command is the edict issued by Darius, recorded 
in the 6th chapter of Ezra, which it is important to read : 
— "Then Darius the king made a decree, and search was made 
in the house of the rolls, where the treasures were laid up in 
Babylon. And there was found at Achmetha, in the palace 
that is in the province of the Medes, a roll, and therein was 
a record thus written, In the first year of Cyrus the king, the 



SACRED ARITHMETIC. 383 

same Cyrus the king made a decree concerning the house of 
God at Jerusalem, Let the house be builded, the place where 
they offered sacrifices, and let the foundations thereof be strongly 
laid ; the height thereof three score cubits, and the breadth 
thereof three score cubits : with three rows of great stones, and 
a row of new timber : and let the expenses be given out of the 
king's house : and also let the golden and silver vessels of the 
house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took forth out of the 
temple which is at Jerusalem, and brought into Babylon, be 
restored, and brought again unto the temple which is at Jeru- 
salem, every one to his place, and place them in the house of 
God. Now therefore, Tatnai, governor beyond the river, Shethar- 
boznai, and your companions the Apharsachites, which are be- 
yond the river, be ye far from thence : let the work of this 
house of God alone ; let the governor of the Jews and the elders 
of the Jews build this house of God in his place. Moreover 
I make a decree what ye shall do to the elders of these Jews 
for the building of his house of God : that of the king's goods, 
even of the tribute beyond the river, forthwith expenses be 
given unto these men, that they be not hindered. And that 
which they have need of, both young bullocks, and rams, and 
lambs, for the burnt offerings of the God of heaven, wheat, salt, 
wine, and oil, according to the appointment of the priests which 
are at Jerusalem, let it be given them day by day without fail : 
that they may offer sacrifices of sweet savours unto the God of 
heaven, and pray for the life of the king, and of his sons. Also 
I have made a decree, that whosoever shall alter this word, 
let timber be pulled down from his house, and being set up, let 
him be hanged thereon; and let his^ house be made a dunghill for 
this. And the God that hath caused his name to dwell there 
destroy all kings and people, that shall put their hand to alter and 
to destroy this house of God which is at Jerusalem. I Darius 
have made a decree ; let it be done with speed. Then Tatnai, 
governor on this side the river, Shethar-boznai, and their compa- 
nions, according to that which Darius the king had sent, so they 
did speedily. And the elders of the Jews builded, and they pros- 
pered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah 
the son of Iddo. And they builded, and finished it, according to 



384 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

the commandement of the God of Israel, and according to the 
commandment of Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes king of 
Persia. And this house was finished on the third day of the 
month Adar , which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius 
the king, and the children of Israel, the priests, and the Levites, 
and the rest of the children of the captivity, kept the dedication 
of this house of God with joy, and offered at the dedication of this 
house of God an hundred bullocks, two hundred rams, four hun- 
dred lambs ; and for a sin offering for all Israel, twelve he-goats, 
according to the number of the tribes of Israel. And they set the 
priests in their divisions, and the Levites in their courses, for the 
service of God, which is at Jerusalem; at it is written in the book 
of Moses. And the children of the captivity kept the passover 
upon the fourteenth day of the first month. For the priests and 
the Levites were purified together, all of them were pure, and 
killed the passover for all the children of the captivity, and for 
their brethren the priests, and for themselves. And the children 
of Israel, which were come again out of captivity, and all such as 
had separated themselves unto them from the filthiness of the hea- 
then of the land, to seek the Lord God of Israel, did eat, and kept 
the feast of unleavened bread seven days with joy: for the Lord had 
made them joyful, and turned the heart of the king of Assyria 
unto them, to strengthen their hands in the work of the house of 
God, the God of Israel." But this plainly relates, like the former, 
to the temple, and it alone. 

The third edict, which I conceive to be the true one, is given 
by Artaxerxes in the seventh year of his reign. It is contained 
in the following chapter, Ezra vii. : — u Now after these things, in 
the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Ezra, the son of Seraiah, 
the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah, the son of Shallum, the 
son of Zadok, the son of Ahitub, the son of Amariah, the son of 
Azariah, the son of Meraioth, the son of Zerahiah. the son of Uzzi, 
the son of Bukki, the son of Abishua, the son of Phinehas, the son 
of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the chief priest : this Ezra went up 
from Babylon ; and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which 
the Lord God of Israel had given : and the king granted him all his 
request, according to the hand of the Lord his God upon him. And 
there went up some of the children of Israel, and of the priests, and 



SACRED ARITHMETIC. 385 

tlie Levites, and the singers, and the porters, and the Nethininis, 
unto Jerusalem, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king. And 
he came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, which was in the seventh 
year of the king. For upon the first day of the first month began he 
to go up from Babylon, and on the first day of the fifth month came 
he to Jerusalem according to the good hand of his God upon him. 
For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to 
do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments. Now this 
is the copy of the letter that the king Artaxerxes gave unto Ezra the 
priest, the scribe, even a scribe of the words of the commandment of 
the Lord, and of his statutes to Israel. Artaxerxes, kings of kings, 
unto Ezra the priest, a scribe of the law of the God of heaven, per- 
fect peace, and at such a time. I make a decree, that all they of 
the people of Israel, and of his priests and Levites, in my realm, which 
are minded of their own freewill to go up to Jerusalem, go with 
thee. Forasmuch as thou art sent of the king, and of his seven 
counsellors, to inquire concerning Judah and Jerusalem, according 
to the law of thy God which is in thine hand; and to carry the silver 
and gold, which the king and his counsellors have freely offered unto 
the God of Israel, whose habitation is in Jerusalem, and all the 
silver and gold that thou canst find in all the province of Babylon, 
with the freewill offering of the people, and of the priests, offering 
willingly for the house of their God which is in Jerusalem : that 
thou mayest buy speedily with this money bullocks, rams, lambs, 
with their meat offerings and their drink offerings, and offer them 
upon the altar of the house of your God which is in Jerusalem. 
And whatsoever shall seem good to thee, and to thy brethren, 
to do with the rest of the silver and the gold, that do after 
the will of your God. The vessels also that are given thee 
for the sercive of the house of thy God, those deliver thou 
before the God of Jerusalem. And whatsoever more shall be 
needful for the house of thy God, which thou shalt have occasion 
to bestow, bestow it out of the king's treasure-house. And 
I, even I Artaxerxes the king, do make a decree to all the 
treasurers which are beyond the river, that whatsoever Ezra 
the priest, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven, shall re- 
quire of you, it be done speedily, unto an hundred talents of 
silver, and to an hundred measures of wheat, and to an hundred 

33 



386 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

baths of wine, and to an hundred baths of oil, and salt without 
prescribing how much. Whatsoever is commanded by the God 
of heaven, let it be diligently done for the liouse of the God of 
heaven : for why sliould there be wrath against the realm of 
the king and his sons ? Also we certify you, that touching any 
of the priests and Levites, singers, porters, Nethinims, or mi- 
nisters of this house of God, it shall not be lawful to impose 
toll, tribute, or custom, upon them. And thou, Ezra, after the 
wisdom of thy God, that is in thine hand, set magistrates and 
judges, which may judge all the people that are beyond the 
river, all such as know the laws of thy God, and teach ye them 
that know them not. And whosoever will not do the law of 
thy God, and the law of the king, let judgment be executed 
speedily upon him, whether it be unto death, or to banishment, 
or to confiscation of goods, or to imprisonment. Blessed be the 
Lord God of our fathers, which hath, put such a thing as this 
in the king's heart, to beautify the house of the Lord which 
is in Jerusalem : and hath extended mercy unto me before the 
king and his counsellors, and before all the king's mighty princes. 
And I was strengthened, as the hand of the Lord my God was 
upon me, and I gathered together out of Israel chief men to 
go up with me." 

A fourth one, as has been supposed by some, was given to 
Nebemiah in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes. But on com- 
paring carefully the seventh chapter of Ezra, which it is im- 
portant to read, where the commission is given to Ezra, with 
the second chapter of Nehemiah, where the commission is given 
to Nehemiah, you will easily perceive that the proclamation given 
to Ezra was a royal one, a general and a public one, and that 
the commission given to Nehemiah was a personal and private 
commission to an individual to go and carry out with great 
speed and vigour what Ezra had begun; and afterward we find 
the two working together and carrying on the rebuilding and the 
restoration of Jerusalem,* its temple, its streets, in very troublous 
times, the labourers having each the trowel in one hand and 
the spear in the other. I therefore argue, that the commencing 
period was the seventh year of the reign of Artaxerxes, as re- 
corded in the seventh chapter of Ezra. There we begin the 



SACRED ARITHMETIC. 387 

whole period of seventy weeks, and of course of the first period 
into which it is divided, viz. seven weeks or forty-nine years. 
We find that the sanctity of the Sabbath was restored, (you will 
find, in the chapters we have read from Ezra and Nehemiah, that 
I am giving only a summary of what is there,) the offering was 
brought to the house of the Lord, the genealogies of the people 
were entered, and the people were separated, and made distinct 
and peculiar from other nations. We find by careful analysis 
that Ezra had laboured thirteen years under the commission of 
Artaxerxes, given in the seventh year of his reign, as recorded in 
the seventh chapter of Ezra ) and that Nehemiah had laboured 
twelve years under his, the twelve and thirteen years together 
making twenty-five years. We read in Nehemiah, that he returned 
from Jerusalem to his royal master, after he had laboured twelve 
years in restoring the city, and that after residing with his royal 
master for some time, he returned to complete the work which he 
had left unfinished. We have now to ascertain how long he re- 
mained away, in order to make up the years. In the last chapter of 
Nehemiah, at verse 28, we read : " And one of the sons of Jehoiada, 
the son of Eliashib the high-priest, was son-in-law to Sanballat 
the Horonite." Then Eliashib was high -priest, and we know this 
fact occurred 412 years before Christ — that is, twenty years addi- 
tional to the twenty -five which I have already specified. We have 
therefore discovered twelve years, thirteen years, and twenty years, 
that is in all forty-five. Now the difficulty is, how are we to get 
the other four years. It rests with you as reasonable men to 
judge whether what I shall advance makes out the point we are 
in search of. 

Nehemiah returned to finish the work he had begun at the 
end of forty-five years. Well, the presumption is, that if he 
had spent so long a time in carrying it on, and if so much re- 
mained undone that he was under the necessity of returning to 
help it to a close, he took at least four years to complete the 
work. I have no element that will give me this four years abso- 
lutely; I can only reasonably conjecture that when he returned 
after forty-five years, to give the finishing strokes to this great 
work, his labours occupied not less, and probably not more than 
four years, thus making in all forty-nine years on the building 



388 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

of Jerusalem in troublous times, and presenting it, as we know 
it to have been presented, entire and complete. 

Malacbi the prophet appeared just at this time, as the last of 
the prophets: the spirit of prophecy then departed from the 
Jews. This was 409 years before the Christian era. This ces- 
sation of prophecy, the completion of the temple, and the organ- 
ization of the Jewish polity, took place exactly forty-nine years 
(this is matter of fact) after the issuing of the command in the 
seventh year of Artaxerxes to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem. 
We have thus, then, got rid of the first of the three divisions of 
the 490 years. Taking away these seven prophetic weeks, or 
forty-nine years, there remained sixty-two weeks from the com- 
pletion of Jerusalem, that is, the termination of the forty-nine 
years, to the manifestation of the Prince the Messiah. Now, if 
we date the one week for his death and confirmation of the 
covenant from the going forth of the command, we shall find 
that the 490 years, minus seven years, that is, seventy weeks, 
minus the last one, expired exactly a. d. 26, — or in the year of 
our Lord 26 the epoch expired. But how can it be said that 
Jesus was manifested at the age of twenty-six? It is matter of 
fact that he was not. Some have tried to prove that there was 
at this time, when the Baptist made his appearance, a commenc- 
ing manifestation, or what might be broadly construed as such. 
But a fact has been introduced in this discussion which settles 
the matter at once — that when the Christian era was settled, an 
error of four years was committed. You will see an evidence of 
this error in the 2d chapter of the Gospel of Luke. It is the 
marginal reading of Bagster's large Bible, and you will see it in 
most of the marginal readings of other Bibles. At Luke ii. 43, 
you will find these words — "And when he was twelve years old, 
they went up to Jerusalem after the c as torn of the feast." Now, in 
Bagster's Bible, and in Bibles having the full marginal reference, 
you will see A. d. 8. In Bagster's Bible, called the Treasury Bible, 
and a very valuable one it is, you will find A. D. 8. But if the a.d, 
begins at our Lord's birth, the date would have been 12. This is 
explained by a blunder of four years having heen committed when 
the Christian era was settled. If this be correct, we have to acid 
four years to twenty-six, and twenty-six and four are thirty, and 



SACRED ARITHMETIC. 389 

thus the termination will be A. d. 30. Now we find, as a matter 
of fact, that Christ was born, not at Christmas, as is popularly sup- 
posed, but a considerable time before. The high probability is, 
that our Lord was born in the autumn, in the beginning of Octo- 
ber, or in the spring season. Another evidence of it is this, that 
the shepherds were in the fields watching their flocks, which could 
scarcely be in mid-winter : all the inspired picture suggests a se- 
rene and beautiful evening, when the angels' song pealed from 
the skies, " Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good- 
will toward men I" Well, if so, you make the age of our Lord 
twenty-nine and a half, by taking the period of the year, namely, 
spring, into consideration; whether we suppose the nativity to 
have occurred toward the close of J. P. 4709, or the commence- 
ment of J. p. 4710, within which limits it demonstrably occur- 
red, the year 31 of our Lord proves coincident with j. p. 4740, 
A. D. 27;* and at that age, twenty-nine and a half, or thirty 
years, we have the expiring of the seventy weeks, minus one 
week, or the 490 years, being 434 years from the completion of 
Jerusalem and the temple. But what took place in the year 
A. d. 30 of our Lord's life? He was baptized by John, and a 
voice came from heaven, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I 
am well pleased." He was thus inaugurated into his office. 
He then commenced his ministry, his precious ministry of love 
and truth; he expired upon the cross three, or three and a half 
years after — that is, in the middle of last week, he was cut off", 
but not for himself. 

We have thus, then, reached with tolerable clearness, if I 
have been able to make myself understood, the completion of 
484 years, or the 490 years, minus seven years, or the one week, 
which yet remain. In other words, I have accounted for that 
part of the 490 years which embraces 483 years, i. e. for seven 
weeks and sixty-two weeks. But one period, a week of seven 
years, still remains to complete the 490 years. From the going 
forth of the command to the manifestation of the Messiah was 
483 years — the remaining week of seven years added, makes 490 
years, that is the sum total. Let us ascertain then, what that 



* See Dr. Nolan's Warburtonian Lectures, p. 474. 
33* 



390 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

week was, and how far the prediction that he should be cut off 
in the midst of it, and confirm the covenant, have been realized. 
Christ was to confirm the covenant for one week. There is but 
one covenant, 'and this is especially predicted in Jeremiah xxxi. 
31 : — " Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make 
a new covenant with the honse of Israel, and with the house of 
Judah : not according to the covenant that I made with their 
fathers." Then I refer to Hebrews x. 15-18: " Whereof the 
Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said 
before, This the covenant that I will make with them after those 
days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in 
their minds will I write them ; and their sins and iniquities will 
I remember no more. Now, where remission of these is, there 
is no more offering for sin." The covenant, then, is plainly the 
New Testament dispensation, and this covenant Christ was to 
confirm with many, or, as the Hebrews words might be literally 
translated, he was to confirm it " with the multitude" for one 
week. Now let us watch our Lord's preaching. From the age 
of thirty, when he began his ministry, to the moment of his con- 
demnation, his preaching was eminently popular. It is declared 
in one passage, that " the common people heard him gladly" — 
the scribes, the priests, the Pharisees were then, as always, in- 
stinct with inveterate antipathy, but the great mass of the people 
heard him gladly. So enthusiastically was he received in some 
parts of his glorious embassy, that they strewed his very path with 
palms, and shouted as he came, " Hosanna to the Son of David : 
Hosanna in the highest." With the multitude, that is, " with 
many," he made the covenant; to the people he explained the 
covenant, and they heard him gladly. But this he did from 
thirty to thirty-three and a half years of age, or during three and 
a half years. How does it apply to him after he was gone? 
We find that what he did personal!]/ for three and a half years 
before his death, he did by the apostles mediately three and a 
half years after his death, just as he did miracles personally be- 
fore his death, and by the apostles after; at the end of this pe- 
riod the apostles left the Jews, shaking the dust from their feet : 
Peter gets his commission to go to the Gentiles, and the Jews 
are cast off, and remain so to this day. During seven years, or. 



SACRED ARITHMETIC. 391 

three years and a half previous, and three years and a half sub- 
sequent to Christ's death, the covenant was confirmed to the 
great multitude of that nation, after which it was taken from 
them, and given to another people. But in the midst of this 
last week Christ was to be cut off. Here, again, the perform- 
ance and the prophecy perfectly tally; it was in the middle of 
the week of the remaining seven years that Christ was cut off. 
Three and a half years from his manifestation at thirty terminated 
his life, three and a half years after that terminated the direct 
mission of the apostles to the Jews as a distinctive and peculiar 
people. But the best proof of it is, that when he should thus 
die and be cut off, the prophecy was fulfilled that the offering and 
the oblation should cease. It is said, "And in the midst of the 
week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease/ ' that 
is plainly the morning and the evening sacrifice, and the great 
atonement made once a year for the remission of sins. 

Most interestingly Grod's providence reveals to us the truth of 
G-od's prophetic word. The Talmudists say that about forty years 
before the destruction of Jerusalem, that is, about the time of the 
death of Jesus, the lots were not cast for the victim, or passed 
into the priest's hand; the wool was not dipped in the blood of 
the atonement, nor were evening lamps lighted, and the temple 
doors were all left open. That is, in- the very year in which 
Christ was cut off, or about forty years before the destruction of 
Jerusalem, it is admitted that there was a suspension of the regu- 
lar office of the Jewish priests; the secession of the sanhedrim 
had taken place, in consequence of which the high-priest was 
incapacitated to perform the chief functions of his office. We 
find, moreover, that when the Jewish national independence had 
ceased to exist, Pilate took away the robes of the high-priest, in 
which robes alone he could officiate on the three high festivals. 
These robes of the high-priest, in which alone he could officiate, 
were locked up under seal in the tower of Antonia ; and for six 
months before, and eighteen months after Christ's death, the 
offering and the oblation ceased, because the priest had not the 
proper robes in which to perform the one or the other ! How 
striking is this fact ! And the very money collected to pay the 
offering Pilate took away from the church, and appropriated to 



392 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

the state ; and it became a political tax, and not, as it might be 
called, a church-rate. The very means and elements of Jewish 
■worship were thus exhausted ; the sacrifice and the oblation ceased. 
But why did they thus cease ? Not merely was prophecy thus 
fulfilled — but the shadow disappeared, for the sun had risen ! the 
symbol evaporated, for the substance was come ! the type was lost, 
for the antitype had now arrived ! And round that cross, when 
Jesus died, and in mingled agony and triumph cried, " It is 
finished !" Moses, Abraham, and Levi, and Ezekiel, and Jere- 
miah, and Daniel, and type, and prophecy, and sacrifice, and high- 
priest, and Levite stood, and repeated each and all the cry, " It is 
finished," "Amen." The oblation and the sacrifice ceased; the 
great Sacrifice was come. Is not this reasoning, if not mathema- 
tically conclusive, morally so ? Is it not the highest possible pre- 
sumption that the epoch specified by Daniel is the Messianic, that 
the Messiah predicted by Daniel is come ? 

First, then, behold the great end and purpose of the Jewish 
nation. How happens it that this people were preserved so pecu- 
liar, singular, separate from the nations ? They were placed in 
Babylon — but not lost in it : some of them were promoted to 
high offices, and employed in lucrative works ; they were mingled 
with the people. All analogies, all laws would go to demonstrate 
that a people seventy years in captivity, slaves for three genera- 
tions, would inevitably be lost in the conquering nation, as a tri- 
butary stream is lost in the mighty river into which it flows. And 
yet, at the end of three generations, all their yearnings and their 
instincts were as strong and earnest as ever toward Jerusalem, 
and the instant that the depression of their condition was removed, 
and their captivity expired, their hearts found a home only in 
Jerusalem. Why was this people so preserved ? Because the 
truth of a thousand promises rested on their being so. God in- 
terposed at every period of their wondrous history to keep them 
for the promised birth of Him who should be of the tribe of 
Judah — a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of his peo- 
ple Israel. And so that people are kept still. Do you think it 
accident that they are as they are — a people without a country, 
their country without a people — found in all lands, speaking all 
tongues, amid the snows of Lapland, on the sands of Senegal ; 



SACRED ARITHMETIC. 393 

under tyrants that crush them, in republics that enfranchise 
them ? Is it to no purpose that they are kept thus insulated from 
the nations of the world ? Like globules of quicksilver dashed 
upon the earth en masse, they are all shivered and scattered ; but 
the great Restorer shall collect the bright drops from a thousand 
lands, removing what prevents their cohesion, and they shall 
meet and mingle in ancient and again beautiful Jerusalem, and 
reflect the image of him who is the Prince the Messiah, amid 
anthems and songs, " Hosanna to the Son of David, hosanna in 
the highest ! Blessed is he that is come again in the name of 
the Lord !" 

In the next place, we have here irresistible evidence, as I have 
already indicated, that Jesus is the Messiah. The moral picture 
and the chronological data, both combined, constitute the full 
demonstration that he is the Messiah. We have no less proof of 
the striking fact that Jesus died, and died, as I have shown, an 
atoning death. His death — never forget it — was not the death 
of a sainted martyr, but of an atoning victim; we regard the 
death of Jesus not as that of an heroic saint, but as that of an 
expiatory and atoning sacrifice. It was altar-fire that consumed 
him, it was a temple life that he led, it was an atoning death that 
he died. Messiah was cut off, but not for himself, and made re- 
conciliation for our iniquity. 

In the next place, this sacrifice was and is finished, perfect, 
complete. My clear friends, we are justified, not by any thing we 
contribute, not by any thing we do, not by any thing we suffer, 
nor by rite nor by ceremony, but by this : u He that knew no sin 
was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of 
God by him." Our sins were laid upon him, external to his holy 
nature ; the innocent lamb wore our tainted fleece, and in it the 
Saviour expired a sacrifice. And as it was just in God to pour 
out the expressions of his wrath upon the innocent one, because 
he saw him in the robes of the transgressor, it will be but faithful 
and just in God to pour out the expressions of his love upon us, 
the strayed sheep, recovered, and clothed again in the glorious 
fleece of Emmanuel's righteousness. God hid his eyes from the 
innocence of Jesus because of our sins laid upon him j he will 
hide his eyes from the transgressions of his people because of 



394 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

Jesus' righteousness laid upon them. Because Jesus was cut off, 
but not for himself, we shall live for ever. Every synagogue in 
London is a standing testimony to the truth of the prophecy of 
Daniel. Lambs and goats bleed for the sins of the people no 
more. Where, my Jewish brethren, are your great atonement, 
where the morning and the evening lamb, where the great sacri- 
fices for sin ? Have you not read, that without shedding of blood 
there is no forgiveness of sin ? Where is the shedding of blood? 
Why is it not ? Rabbi and Jew are silent ? Why? I can tell. 
Because the Messiah in the midst of the week was cut off and 
made the long-prefigured sacrifice, and ended the oblation for sin. 
Every Jew upon the streets unconsciously cries, "It is finished •" 
every synagogue in the land protests, "It is finished;" every me- 
morial of the suffering of that persecuted race, their insulation 
from the nations of the earth, their clinging to Levi, and to the 
land of their fathers, all proclaim, " It is finished." May it be 
our heartfelt joy that "it is finished!" It is so. Thanks and 
glory be to God. 

"'Tis finish'd; the Messiah dies 
For sins, but not his own ; 
The great redemption is complete, 
And Satan's pow'r o'erthrown." 



395 



LECTURE XXVII. 



THE MESSIAH THE PRINCE. 



" Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command- 
ment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be 
seven weeks, and three score and two weeks : the streets shall be built again, 
and the wall, even in troublous times." — Daniel ix. 25. 

After having explained at some length the priestly office of 
the Messiah, as that office is unfolded in verse 24, viz. " To finish 
transgression, and to make an end of sin, to make reconciliation 
for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness," I have thought 
that I cannot close this first part of the visions of Daniel, which 
we have contemplated before on successive Sabbath evenings, 
without some remarks upon that most important office of the 
Messiah, the kindly office, or Messiah the Prince. 

That Jesus is the High-Priest of his church, all true churches 
fully admit — that he is the only Prophet whose word is infallible, 
all true Christians equally admit. His royal office is equally 
important. Scripture speaks as often of the kingly office of the 
Messiah as of his priestly and his prophetic offices ; and there is 
no doubt that his royal functions are just as precious as his 
sacerdotal, in practical value to us, or they would not have been 
so often and so distinctly unfolded in Scripture. In all his 
offices Jesus is the object of the faith and hope of believers. 

Let me proceed to give some instances of scriptural allusions 
to the princely or kingly office of the Messiah. In prophecy we 
read — "A sceptre shall rise out of Israel" — that is, Christ the 
Messiah shall be king. Again : " His name shall be called [that 
is, in prophetic language, he shall actually be] the Prince of 
peace." Again: "I will raise unto David a righteous branch, 
and a king shall reign." Again, in Micah : " Thou, Beth-lehem 



396 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, 
yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in 
Israel." 

It was in the belief of these prophecies, or from their having 
heard the echoes of them sounding over all the earth, that the 
Magi, when they came to Jesus, guided by the prophetic star, 
asked, " Where is he who is born King of the Jews ?" Again, 
Nathanael said, " Thou art the Son of God, thou art the King 
of Israel." And Jesus, speaking of himself on that last day 
when all destiny shall be settled, and the great drama of this 
world shall be wound up for ever, says, " Then shall the King 
say to them upon his right hand." Pilate, addressing Jesus, 
asked him, "Art thou a hing? } Jesus answered in the affirma- 
tive, " Thou sayest :" that is, translated in modern phrase, " I am 
a king." And as if the rays of his kingly glory could not be 
repressed — as if the splendour of that diadem which the scorn, 
the insult, and reproach of the world were combined to tarnish, 
could not be hidden, it is declared that his very foes inscribed, 
under a mysterious influence they could neither explain nor resist, 
these words upon his cross, " Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the 
Jews." When the priests, alive to the force of these words, 
said, " Say not the King of the Jews, but write that he said, I 
am the King of the Jews," Pilate, the unconscious minister of a 
sublime purpose, was made to authenticate the truth of the 
inscription when he said, "What I have written I have written ;" 
Jesus of Nazareth is King of the Jews. In him, in short, centre 
all the royalties of David, all the righteousness of Melchisedek, 
all the peacefulness of Solomon. He is "King of kings," "the 
Prince of the kings of the earth." Hidden he may now be; 
denied by the world he is ; thousands may shout, " We will not 
have this man to rule over us ;" but in temples some of which 
the sun gilds with his earliest rays, and on others of which linger 
his retiring beams, these joyful words are sounding from pious 
hearts and glad tongues — " Thou art the King of Glory, 
Christ !" 

In viewing this royal office of the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
investigating the meaning of the expression of Daniel, " Messiah 
the Prince," I may state, first of all, that he is represented in the 



THE MESSIAH THE PRINCE. 391 

Scriptures as the true Melchisedek, the king of righteousness ; as 
that king, in short, who, in spiritual things, alone has legislative 
and conclusive prerogatives. He alone can repeal a law; he 
alone can create or re-enact a law. Paul, Peter, John, the 
ministers of the gospel, can say, "A new commandment is 
given?" but Christ could say, because he is Messiah the Prince, 
"A new commandment / give unto you." On the mount, in 
that sublime sermon, unrivalled for its beauty and simplicity — so 
grand that the greatest philosophers cannot exhaust its meaning, 
so sweet and so plain that the humblest peasant is refreshed and 
delighted with its truth — in that sublime discourse again and 
again he said, " Ye have heard, An eye for an eye, a tooth for a 
tooth; but I say unto you ;" these are the words of Messiah the 
Prince. The people felt it, the crowd exclaimed, " He speaks as 
one having authority." In short, in all that Jesus did, in all that 
he said, in all that he suffered, there are the irresistible signs of 
the presence of the priest, the prophet, and the king; and the 
unsophisticated multitude again and again admitted that it was so. 
He alone, as Messiah the Prince, repealed the ceremonial law, by 
presenting himself as its end, its aim, and its object. He alone, 
as the great Legislator of the church, as the Prince the Messiah, 
finished all the functions of Aaron, and unfolded in all their 
grandeur the lasting functions of Melchisedek. He alone enun- 
ciated laws; he alone unfolded new and glorious truths; and 
every doctrine that he taught, every law that he gave, are king's 
words ; they bear the stamp and superscription of Messiah the 
Prince ; they constitute a royal code : they are sublime pandects 
to last while the world lasts, the law and testimony of his people 
Israel. For any one now to add to the perfect law, or to step in, 
and say, " Christ hath said so-and-so; but I say unto you," would 
be constructive treason against the Prince of the kings of the earth. 
For any one to add laws to Christ's law, and to inculcate opinions 
or ecclesiastical truths, however good the one or the other may 
be, in their place, as if these were of equal authority with the 
law of Christ, is not only treason, but apostasy; it is to intrude 
into the king's place, to assume the king's name, to stamp the 
image and the superscription of Messiah the Prince upon our 
own vile brass, and give it currency among mankind. Thus 

34 



398 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

Christ, as King, gives us laws ; none else are competent to do so. 
His laws are in all cases conclusive. The law of Cassar and the law 
of Christ may come into collision ; such collisions have occurred, 
though not in our time, such possibilities may occur again ; but 
when they do, as we pray they may not, we have no choice ; 
whether it be right to obey Grod, or to obey Caesar, judge ye. 

In the next place, it is as Messiah the Prince, or as the King, 
that Christ bestows forgiveness. It was as a priest he made it 
possible for G-od to forgive : it is as a king that he makes that 
forgiveness actual to us. It was upon his cross that he purchased 
forgiveness ; it is from his throne that he bestows that forgive- 
ness. If Christ had never died for us, the possibility of our 
forgiveness had not been ; if Christ did not sit a prince upon his 
throne, the fact of our forgiveness could not be. Let us praise 
him that he died for us; let us praise him that he reigns for us. 
Let us rejoice that forgiveness is possible, for Jesus died; let us 
rejoice that forgiveness is obtainable, for Jesus reigns, Messiah 
the Prince. He alone could say, "I died for sins;" he alone 
can say, "I bestow the forgiveness of sins." It is, my dear 
friends, as much an encroachment on the kingly office of Christ 
to assume to forgive sin, as it is an encroachment on the priestly 
office of Christ to pretend to purchase, or to suffer for, or to de- 
serve, the forgiveness of sin. The hand that bled upon the cross, 
that was pierced by the nail, is the only hand that can be 
stretched out to bestow forgiveness upon me. For any one to pro- 
nounce a judicial absolution is an intrusion into the kingly office 
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He who atoned alone can absolve. 

It is a remarkable fact, that during the first four centuries of 
the Christian church, when the pretensions of the priesthood be- 
gan to be stretched to an extravagant pitch, and many of the 
fathers, such as Chrysostom, began to speak of the priesthood as 
the ordo divinus — "the divine order," there is not one instance 
recorded, of absolution being pronounced, by priest or prelate, in 
the first person singular, " I absolve." In all the very ancient 
offices, absolution was simply a prayer, and not a judicial act. 
And it is a pity that in the service of the Church of England, 
amid so many services that are beautiful, there is one — I admit, 
fallen very much into desuetude — in which is still a formula of 



THE MESSIAH THE PRINCE. 399 

absolution which is not scriptural, not truly primitive, " I absolve 
thee." I know it is understood by evangelical ministers to be 
declarative, but it is made the basis of pretensions on the part of 
ministers of another stamp on which they assume to pronounce a 
judicial absolution. A minister has no more power to absolve 
sins than a layman. I believe truly the words which Martin 
Luther uses : " A pope or a bishop has no more power to remit 
sin than the humblest priest; nay, without any priest, every 
Christian, even though a woman or a child, can do the same. If 
a simple believer, woman or child, say to thee, ' God pardon thy 
sins, in the name of Jesus Christ/ and thott^receive the word with 
a firm faith, thou art absolved in Grod's sight." So completely 
did that great reformer sweep out of the visible church all idea 
of a priesthood among the ministers of the gospel. The great 
nucleus of the growing apostasy that is around us is the idea of a 
priesthood being the true character of the Christian ministry. 
There is no such officer, I have often told you, as a lepebg, a sacri- 
ficing priest, in the church of Christ. It would be more appro- 
priate that a colonel of a regiment should stand by the communion 
table, because he may be a Christian, than that a sacrificing priest 
should pretend to do so : we know of no such officer ; there is no 
room for him. The introduction of the idea that the ministers of 
the gospel are sacrificing priests, is the opening of the door for 
the inrush of the full flood of the western apostasy. Christ alone 
absolves : as a priest he purchased forgiveness, and he has all the 
glory of that ; as a king he bestows forgiveness, and he claims all 
the glory of that. It is the very essence of Protestant and Scrip- 
tural Christianity, not to keep you for a moment by the priest, 
but to bring you to Christ for the price of forgiveness, to Christ 
for the bestowal of forgiveness ; that Christ in the midst of the 
church, and in the believer's heart, as Prophet, Priest, and King, 
may be all and in all. 

In the next place, it is as a King that the Lord Jesus Christ 
appoints and sends forth ministers of the gospel. Such appoint- 
ment is the fruit of his intercession ; it is also the commission of 
his kingly power. It matters not, or it may matter not, by what 
ecclesiastical formula or canon or rite the minister may be ap- 
pointed ; if he be a true minister, he is sent by the Lord Jesus 



400 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

Christ; for when he ascended up on high, a he gave some, apos- 
tles ; and some, prophets ; and some, evangelists ; and some, pas- 
tors and teachers." No human commission can be a substitute 
for the divine one ; the true presentation is from the upper throne; 
the real ordination is under the hand of Jesus. The appointment 
of a minister is a royal one, but it is from a royalty that lives and 
lasts beyond the stars — the royalty of Messiah the Prince. Per- 
haps, if we quarrelled less about ecclesiastical formulae, and 
honoured more the kingship of Christ, by asking oftener of Mes- 
siah the Prince to send forth labourers into the vineyard, it would 
be better for the church of Christ. A patron may present one 
who has every ecclesiastical fitness, but yet he may not be a minis- 
ter of Christ. The people may elect one who has every element 
of eloquence, and yet he may not be a minister of Christ. I do 
not believe in the infallibility of the people any more than in the 
infallibility of the patron. Christ alone can create, Christ alone 
can commission a minister, and it is an invasion of his royal pre- 
rogative to think that any one form is infallibly successful, or 
that it alone may be used for the appointment of ministers of the 
gospel. 

In the next place, it is as Messiah the Prince, it is as Christ 
the King, that he gives the Holy Spirit to them that ask him. 
As a Priest he opened up the way for the descent of that Spirit ; 
as a King he commissions and sends forth that Holy Spirit unto 
them that ask him. Pentecost is the evidence of the kingly office 
of the Lord Jesus Christ ; regeneration in the individual heart is 
the impress struck by the King of Grlory, Messiah the Prince. 
Every true Christian is a current coin of that royal realm, on 
which Christ has struck the image and superscription of himself. 
"Wherever you see a Christian, you have there the evidence that 
Christ reigns; wherever a regenerated heart beats, there you 
have a proof that Messiah the Prince lives, and sits upon his 
throne a Prince and an Intercessor. 

In the next place, it is in his kingly capacity that Christ will 
decide at the judgment day. You recollect the very words that 
he uses : " Then shall the King say to them on his right hand, 
Come, ye blessed j" " Then shall the King answer and say unto 
them, Verily, I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto 



THE MESSIAH THE PRINCE. 401 

one of these little ones, ye have done it unto me." It is in his 
royal capacity — it is as Messiah the Prince, that Christ pronounces 
the everlasting doom of the lost, and declares the everlasting 
and irreversible destiny of the saved. It is the King that says, 
and it is therefore a royal word, "Come, ye blessed;" it is the 
King that says, and therefore it is a royal decree, " Depart, ye 
cursed." At that royal sound all that sleep in their graves shall 
instantly awake : the particles of dust that float upon the wind 
shall become consolidated into organized frames : the very gases 
that mingle with the atmosphere, and are absorbed by the streams 
of the earth, shall come out distinguished and eliminated at that 
royal bidding, and form the bodies of the risen saints of the Most 
High. That royal sound shall pierce the pyramids where the 
Ptolemys sleep ; it shall enter the grave where the dust of the 
beggar rests ; it shall come with its reverberation into the ancient 
urn, and stir the ashes of the long-silent dead ; and all — the beg- 
gar under the green turf, the prince in his mausoleum of marble 
or of brass, shall come forth with equal readiness to answer for 
the deeds done in the body, to Messiah the Prince, to Christ the 
King. He then shall pronounce the rewards and punishments 
of the last day ; and he alone can do it. Man, as a king, a legis- 
lator, or a judge, can punish for outward acts that outwardly con- 
travene the laws of the land ; but Christ alone has power, and he 
claims it as his exclusive prerogative, to punish for inward senti- 
ments, emotions, convictions, passions, desires. Man, the legis- 
lator or judge, may and will punish the subject that breaks the 
laws ; but no king upon the earth may put his royal hand into 
that holy place called the conscience, even in the bosom of the 
poorest beggar ; it is too sacred for kings to touch ; its solemn 
nature is too awful for legislators to intermeddle with : and the 
prince or magistrate that persecutes a person for the opinions that 
he holds, however erroneous these opinions may be, not only in- 
trudes on the prerogative of Messiah the Prince, but he conse- 
crates the error in the eyes of thousands, and elevates the sufferer 
into the dignity of a martyr for the rights, the liberties, and the 
privileges of mankind. Persecution never put down an error, 
and it never promoted a truth • we have far better weapons ; we 

want it not; if we dare use it, we will not, it is too weak : " The 

34* 



402 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty, through God, 
to the pulling down of strongholds." 

This leads me to remark, in the next place, that this kingly 
office of the Lord Jesus Christ is just as in transferable as his 
priestly office. What is not the least sin of the Church of Rome? 
and, in its degree, of the Tractarian party ? Just this — that they 
claim for the church, as a visibly organized body, the functions 
of prophet, priest, and king; they speak of the church — mean- 
ing by the church practically the heierarchy — as if it were the 
prophet, priest, and king of the people; while the pope, with 
greater consistency, but with intenser blasphemy, calls himself 
the prophet of the church, the high-priest of the church, and the 
king of the church, and wears, as the demonstration that he is 
so, the tiara, or the threefold crown, that stamps him in his own 
view to have the threefold functions — that proclaims him in our 
view to be the antichrist, " sitting in the temple of God, and 
showing, himself as if he were God." No pastor in the church 
may lawfully assume to be a king in it, any more than he may 
assume to be a priest in it. The function of a minister of the 
gospel is purely pastoral ; it is not in the least degree regal. You, 
my dear friends, the communicants and worshippers in this church, 
are not my subjects, and I am not your lord ; you are my friends 
and brethren, and I am your servant for Christ's sake. I am not 
appointed by the Great King to lord it over the heritage of God; 
but I am appointed and commissioned by him to feed the flock 
of Christ which he has intrusted unto me. My function is pas- 
toral, not regal ; it is the shepherd's crook, not the monarch's 
sceptre. In the next place, the Lord Jesus, as the Messiah the 
Prince, is spoken of in Scripture as the " Prince of the kings of 
the earth." All kings are, or ought to be, his subjects, respon- 
sible to him for the dutifulness with which they serve and obey 
him ; and as his subjects, and ministers, and servants, their 
mighty influence should be consecrated to his glory, and to the 
advancement of his truth. 

He is also called in Scripture the " Prince of life." What an 
epithet is that ! Christ is the Prince of life. The kings of this 
world cannot perpetuate life ; the mightiest sovereign of the might- 
iest empire must lie down, and turn his face to the wall, and die 



THE MESSIAH THE PRINCE. 403 

as one of the meanest of the people. The bones and the ashes 
of royalty are scattered through every land ; death enters as un- 
ceremoniously royal palaces as poor men's hovels, and beats with 
equal foot* at the doors of both. But Jesus can say, "I live, 
and was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore;" Jesus can 
say, "I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in 
me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." Christ gives life ; 
he assumes to do so ; he proclaims himself the Prince of life : 
he that does so is either God or is a blasphemer; but "we know 
in whom we have believed," and that when he called himself the 
Prince of life, he claimed the glory that is justly due to him, and 
is exclusively his own. 

The Lord Jesus is proclaimed in Scripture not only the Prince 
of life, but he is also the Prince of peace. There was a contro- 
versy between God and man; not that God had changed, but that 
man had become guilty ; conscience felt its sin, foresaw and fore- 
boded the advent of its Judge, and it trembled. Put Christ, hav- 
ing come, has made peace by the blood of his covenant, and con- 
stituted himself the Prince of peace. And now it comes to pass 
that that which satisfies the justice of God is also able to satisfy 
the conscience of man. Nothing, my dear friends, can satisfy my 
conscience except that blood that gave satisfaction to the justice 
and the holiness of God. If we wish national peace, social 
peace, domestic peace, universal peace, we never can secure it by 
conventionalism, by organization, by eloquent eulogia on peace, 
by animated pictures of its glories and its beauties : the only 
basis on which peace can grow is the basis of righteousness and 
truth ; there can no more be peace without the Prince of peace 
than there can be light without the sun, or the beating heart 
without the life-blood circulating through it. The true way, then, 
to have universal peace, is to have universal Christianity. The 
right way to render soldiers, which some so declaim against, 
(though I doubt if it is more sinful to be a soldier than to be a 
lawyer ; I question if a lawyer's weapons are not often as un- 
christian as a soldier's,) altogether and in all concerns unnecessary, 



' iEquo pede pulsat 

Pauperuni tabernas regumcpie turres." — Hoi 



404 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

and to turn the bayonet into the pruning-hook, to hang the clarion 
in the hall, and let nations hear the roll of war's conquering drum 
no more, is not to dismiss the army, hut to preach and promote 
among civilians the knowledge of him who is the Prince of peace, 
and under whose shadow and sceptre alone there can be permanent 
and blessed peace. " There is no peace to the wicked :" preach 
it as you like, individuals and nations must become Christians 
before they can enjoy or maintain peace. Spread Christianity, 
and there will be peace ; recognise Christ as the true Melchisedek, 
the King of righteousness, and you will soon have Jesus as the 
true Melchisalem, the Prince of peace. Bow before the sceptre 
of Christ the King, and you will soon live under the olive-branch 
of the Prince of peace. 

As Christ the King has a kingdom, we may inquire what it 
is ? It is not, as some seem to misapprehend, meat and drink. 
The apostle says, "The kingdom of God is not meat nor drink, 
but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost/ 7 It is, 
therefore, neither fasting nor feasting, neither rubric nor rite, nor 
ceremony; these things maybe too few or they may be too many; 
they may be too severe or they may be too gorgeous ; they are 
but the shells, the husks ; they are not the substantial elements 
of the kingdom of Christ. Nor is that kingdom Episcopacy, nor 
is it Presbytery, nor is it Congregationalism; nor is it immersion, 
nor is it sprinkling, nor is it baptism in infancy nor in maturer 
years : these things may be, or they may not be ; they may be 
good or they may be bad, or they may be indifferent; but they are 
not the substantial elements of the kingdom of Christ; it nourishes 
and spreads without them, often in spite of them, for it is some- 
thing stronger and higher than them all — it is righteousness with- 
out us, which is Christ's ; righteousness within us, which is the 
Spirit's ; the righteousness which is imputed and perfect, and by 
which we are justified ; the righteousness which is imparted and 
imperfect, and by which we are sanctified — the one our title, the 
other our fitness for heaven. And it is " peace;" peace with con-(^ 



science, peace with our brethren, peace with God and with all the / 
universe besides. And it is "joy. "^ It begins in righteousness, : 
it grows in power, it spreads in peace/ it culminates in beauty, in \ 
glory, and in joy : it is planted as a seed in the individual heart; 



THE MESSIAH THE PRINCE. 405 

it germinates and grows, till upon the mountain -tops it waves 
with fruit like Lebanon, and the whole earth is covered with the 
harvest of its glory. The existence of this kingdom upon earth, 
the elements of which I have tried to define, is evidence of the 
presence of a divine royalty in the midst of it. It is a kingdom l 
that derives no nutriment from the earth ; it is not of the world, J 
though it is in it. Left to itself, Christianity, with all its excel- I 
lence, would have expired long ago. It is as necessary that the 
King should be upon his throne in the midst of his church, as it 
is that the High-Priest should be by his altar in the midst of it ; 
it is as necessary that Christ's sceptre should be over the towers 
of Zion, as that Christ's cross should be set forth in its creeds, 
and sermons, and prayers, and services. No professions, no rites, 
no ceremonies, no polity could save a living church from destruc- 
tion, if Christ were to cease to be true to that promise, " Lo, I 
am with you alway, even to the end of the world." But because 
the king has been in it, no weapon formed against it has pros- 
pered. Heresy has tried to corrupt it ; power has sought to ex- 
tirpate it. Like a tender flower amid the Alpine snows — like a 
tiny spark amid the billows of the sea — like the ark with Moses 
in it amid the waters of the Nile, with mighty forces gathered 
round ready to overwhelm it, has the church of Christ been in 
the history of the world, and in the experience of mankind. His 
commission, " Go and preach," was a royal one ; his promise, 
" Lo, I am with you always," is equally a royal one. This king- 
dom, it is true, is not outward and visible : the soul is the seat of 
its power; its victories, its glories, its achievements are all there. 
And, blessed be God, this kingdom, invisible to sight, but real to 
faith, and hope, and joy, and to every Christian heart, is a broad 
and comprehensive one; it is not restricted to a sect, but compre- 
hends many of every name ; it is not limited to the world, but 
stretches beyond the stars. Europe is not all Christendom ; Eu- 
rope, Asia, Africa, and America are not the whole of Christen- 
dom ; Christendom stretches into eternity ; we have brethren 
beside the throne who drink of the stream as it bursts from the 
fountain, while we drink of the same stream as it flows by the 
footstool. Christendom comprehends saints in triumph and saints 
that are militant — heaven and earth, in short, all God's people. 



406 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

Tlie entrance into this kingdom — what is it ? A way so "broad 
i that there is no criminal in this audience (if such there be here) 
that may not enter; and yet a way so holy that he must lay 
down his criminality the instant that he takes a single step upon 
it. The way into this kingdom is not by gold, nor frankincense, 
! nor myrrh — these cannot buy it ; politicians cannot create it: it 
is Christ alone its title, regeneration by the Spirit alone the fitness 
for it. 

The law of this realm, the true Christendom — what is it ? It 
is not law, it is love; its subjects, we are told, love one another. 
Jesus governs by love ; it is the pavilion of his power, it is the 
throne of his glory, it is the badge of his subjects, it is the cohe- 
sion of his own grand and mighty kingdom. One law governs 
the clouds in the air, and binds the worlds to the sun : one in- 
stinct guides the emigrant birds from home, and back to home 
again : so one passion — love — guides and governs all the sub- 
jects of Christ, and his kingdom coheres and moves in harmony, 
because they have learned to love Christ and to love one another. 

And this kingdom comes quietly. Jesus, when he walked in 
Palestine, was surrounded by no pomp or parade ; he shot forth 
no blazing and sensuous splendour on those that were around 
him ; he came as his kingdom comes — like the rain upon the 
mown grass, as the showers that water the earth. This kingdom, 
made up of righteousness, joy, and peace, comes like the sweet 
of spring — gentle, soft, yet persistent. The seed sown in tears, 
watered with blood, grows up quietly while men sleep, and 
while men wake. Satan falls from heaven like a flash of light- 
ning, or the thunderbolt; but the Holy Spirit comes from hea- 
ven descending like a gentle dove. The kingdom of sin passes 
away like a fierce whirlwind : the kingdom of Jesus comes softly 
like the morning light that shineth more and more unto the 
perfect day. 

Brethren, are you the subjects of Messiah the Prince ? Are 
you members of this divine kingdom, this holy company, this 
happy fellowship ? All members of all visible churches are not 
so ; all baptized men, however baptized, are not so. There are 
good fishes and bad in the net ; there are tares and wheat in the 
visible church. Salvation is not union to a church, but union to 



THE MESSIAH THE PRINCE. 407 

Christ. To belong to this kingdom is to be renewed in heart, 
and not merely to be baptized by man. And they who are the 
subjects of it are those Tbessalonians of whom we read that they 
have "the work of faith, the labour of love, the patience of 
hope," who are chosen in Christ, who are missionaries to all that 
are around them, who are patiently waiting for the Son of G-od 
from heaven. Are you subjects of this King ? Do you love his 
law? Do you feel in your heart that law wMch is love? "If 
any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ," it matters not whether 
he be a churchman or a dissenter, " he is none of his." If we 
love him, and love the brethren as he hath given us command- 
ment, we are his. And what a glorious king ! Hannibal con- 
quered, and is gone; his existence is a fact, a dead fact, and no 
more. Caesar reigned, and is gone ; his reign is a fact, a dead 
fact, and no more. But Jesus lived, and lives ; his reign is a 
living and ever-governing fact j he reigned, and reigns ; fresh and 
actual is his sceptre to-day as when first he proclaimed his king- 
dom. His kingdom sinks not into sands of oblivion, it is ob- 
structed by no power, it grows in beauty, it spreads in influence ; 
and very soon we shall behold the King in his beauty, and the 
land that is afar off; and he shall have dominion from sea to sea, 
and all shall bless him, and shall be blessed in him; and the 
prayers of his people, like the prayers of David the son of Jesse, 
will then be ended. 

"With anthems of devotion 

Ships from the isles shall meet, 
And pour the wealth of ocean 
In tribute at his feet. 

"For he shall have dominion 
O'er river, sea, and shore; 
Ear as the eagle's pinion 

Or dove's light wing can soar." 



408 



LECTURE XXVIII. 



JERUSALEM AND THE JEWS. 

" And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for 
himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and 
the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of 
the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with 
many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice 
and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall 
make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be 
poured upon the desolate." — Daniel ix. 26, 27. 

I have shown by a previous comparison between the charac- 
teristics of the work of the Messiah, as predicted in the 24th 
verse of this chapter, and the actual facts that are recorded of 
the life of Jesus, that he is the Messiah, and that he alone has 
finished the transgression, made an end of sin, made reconciliation 
for iniquity, brought in everlasting righteousness, sealed up the 
vision and the prophecy, and is anointed now the most Holy. I 
showed in a previous discourse that not only did a comparison of 
the moral characteristics, as they are unfolded in the prophecy, 
and find a counterpart in Jesus, prove him to be the Messiah; 
but the chronology of the passage no less unequivocally attests it. 
I showed, that from the time when the command went forth in 
the seventh year of the reign of Artaxerxes, as recorded in the 
seventh chapter of Ezra, to rebuild Jerusalem, to the manifesta- 
tion of Jesus Christ at the baptism of John the Baptist, there 
elapsed exactly seventy prophetic weeks, or seventy times seven, 
or 490 years — minus the remaining week, (or seven years,) in the 
midst of which he was to be cut off. I showed that in the midst 
of the last week here specified the Messiah suffered. I gave you 
the clear and irresistible evidence of it in the sudden cessation of 



JERUSALEM AND THE JEWS. 409 

all the sacrifices of Levi ; in the fact that Pilate had plundered 
the high-priest of his robes, shut them up in the tower of Anto- 
nia, and made it impossible for the high-priest to offer up the 
great sacrifice appointed by law • in the fact that after the death 
of Jesus, and the desolation of the temple, the Jews were, and 
are still, without a sacrifice, without an altar, without a high- 
priest. In short, the evidence is irresistible, that if Jesus be not 
the Messiah, it is in vain that the Jews look for another. Many 
of them are coming to this conclusion. I have heard repeatedly, 
in late years, that on the continent of Europe many of the Jews 
are become skeptics, casting off even the hopes of Israel, believ- 
ing that all has been false, because the disappointment is so bit- 
ter. But it is when their hopes shall be lowest that the glory of 
Israel shall rise upon them ; it is at eventide that it shall be light; 
and when Israel's depression shall be the deepest, and its despair 
of a coming Messiah shall have reached its meridian, then shall 
he come, and "shine before his ancients gloriously," "a light to 
lighten the G-entiles, and the glory of his people Israel." 

In this lecture I wish to close this portion of the prophecies of 
Daniel, on which I have spent so many Sabbath evenings, by re- 
ferring to the sequel of the prediction contained in these verses — 
namely, the destruction, desolation, and sweeping away of Jeru- 
salem, its temple, and all its glory. It is expressly predicted in 
verse 26, that " the people of the prince that shall come" (that 
is, the Romans, the subjects of Titus or Vespasian,) "shall de- 
stroy the city." The words are literally, " the people of the leader 
who is to come." Populus was the distinctive and emphatic 
title of the Romans. Their rulers assumed no higher title than 
Imperator, or Ruler. The prediction is verbally accurate, and 
pre-allusive in every respect. It was ploughed up, according to 
ancient prophecy : the ploughshare literally tore up its walls ; and 
as to the sanctuary, not a trace of that temple remains. Is it 
not remarkable that while the temple of Jerusalem was the most 
majestic and magnificent erection in the world, surpassing in its 
splendour even the temple of Diana, far surpassing all the tem- 
ples that remain in heathendom in strength, in grandeur, in fit- 
ness to bear the wear of weather, and to defy the fierce tempest ; 
not one memorial of it remains above ground ? The only possible 

35 



410 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

remain is a large stone, noticed by a deputation that visited Jeru- 
salem, still kissed by the rabbis that go there for the first time ; 
as if the 102nd Psalm could not contain a prophecy without its 
being fulfilled — 

"Thy saints [to use our own Scottish, version] take pleasure in her stones, 
Her very dust to them is dear.'' 

With that exception, the temple of Jerusalem is gone ; yet remains 
of ancient heathen temples are traceable everywhere. But when 
I express amazement that not one trace remains, why should I ? 
The Lord of all truth hath said, " Not one stone shall be left 
upon another, that shall not be thrown down ;" and Daniel said, 
" The end thereof shall be with a flood," — that is, the destruction 
of this city and of its temple shall not be a gradual thing. The 
Parthenon at Athens has been gradually wasting by winds, rains, 
and storms, and fragments of it are in the Louvre in Paris, and 
in the British Museum in London ; the great theatres or amphi- 
theatres of Borne are still wasting and mouldering : but it was 
prophesied of the temple of Jerusalem that " the end thereof 
shall be with a flood" — its last trace should be utterly swept 
away; " and unto the end of the war" — that is God's war against 
that race — "desolations are determined," that is, no one need try 
to rebuild it. It is a very remarkable history — whether true or 
not, I cannot say, but I see no reason to doubt it — that Julian the 
apostate, learning from the Christians that God had predicted the 
final destruction of the temple of Jerusalem, and that it should 
never be rebuilt until the time of his great controversy with the 
Jews should be finished, and they should be recalled, and restored 
in more than their ancient grandeur, said he would refute that 
prophecy; and in order to do so, he appointed workmen, and sup- 
plied money, to rebuild the temple. The record of ancient writers 
is, that fire-balls burst in all directions from the earth, which 
alarmed the workmen, and made them cease. Whether the oc- 
currence of a miraculous obstruction be literally true or not, I 
cannot say; but this I believe is true — that the attempt was 
frustrated, that the workmen gave it up in despair, and that Julian 
learned that one word of the everlasting God was stronger than 
the legions of Caesar, and richer than all the treasures of imperial 
Rome. 



JERUSALEM AND THE JEWS. 411 

Then it is added in the 27th verse, that after the sacrifice and 
oblation should cease, " for the overspreading of abominations he 
shall make it desolate." You recollect what our Lord says when 
predicting the destruction of Jerusalem : " When ye therefore 
shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the 
prophet, standing where it ought not." Now this literally took 
place j for we read that the standards of the Romans were placed, 
not only on the battlements and walls of Jerusalem, but in the 
very " holy place" itself, where the altar was, and while sacrifices 
were being offered. The eagles of imperial Rome, which orna- 
mented the standards of the Romans, bare in their talons the so- 
called thunderbolts of the heathen god Jupiter ; these standards 
contained also the images of the gods and of the emperors, and 
as such, divine honours were paid to them. To these gods and 
images pourtrayed upon the standards of Rome, planted on the 
altar where the cherubim, and the glory, and the mercy-seat once 
were, sacrifices were actually offered up by the heathen priests at 
the time that Titus was hailed as the emperor of the Romans, and 
the soldiers were present witnessing this desecration of the holy 
place, this overspreading of the abomination that made desolate, 
this last blow that finished the polity and closed the majestic his- 
tory of the most wonderful race that sun ever shone upon. " For 
the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even 
until the consummation" — that is, either the consummation of its 
existence, or the consummation of the period determined for its 
overthrow — "and that which is determined" — that amount of 
wrath is determined — " shall be poured upon the desolate ;" and 
then after that Israel shall be restored. 

Now, this prediction in Daniel was that which, awed and irri- 
tated the Jew. Every Jew regarded Jerusalem as the most sa- 
cred spot upon the earth • the very stones of the noble temple 
were clear to the Jew; its very dust was sacred to him. David 
said, (what was only the prevailing sentiment,) " If I forget thee, 
Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning : if I prefer 
thee not above my chief joy, let my tongue cleave unto the roof 
of my mouth." It was the city of the great King ; it was the 
place for the presence of the Most High; and to tell the Jew that 
his temple should be overthrown was almost equivalent to telling 



412 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

a Christian Gentile that God shall be dethroned and cease to 
reign. Yon can conceive, therefore, with what exasperation the 
Jews heard reiterated by our Lord the prophecy of their ruin ; 
and what grounds for opposition they had to those prophets that 
specially predicted the desolation of the city and the sanctuary, 
and the overspreading of abominations which should make it 
utterly desolate. 

This prophecy, however, of Daniel, was not the only prophecy 
of this kind contained in the Old Testament Scriptures : it is the 
repetition of prophecies that were uttered at least a thousand 
years before Daniel wrote. Moses, who had viewed that glorious 
land from Mount Nebo, who believed the bright promises that 
related to its future prosperity and grandeur, was yet inspired by 
God himself to predict its awful desolation in these words : "The 
Lord will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy 
seed. Moreover he will bring upon thee all the diseases of 
Egypt, which thou wast afraid of; and they shall cleave unto 
thee. Also every sickness, and every plague, which is not written 
in the book of this law, them will the Lord bring upon thee, until 
thou be destroyed. And ye shall be few in number, whereas ye 
were as the stars of heaven for multitude; because thou wouldest 
not obey the voice of the Lord thy God. And it shall come to 
pass, that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good; so the 
Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to 
nought ; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou 
goest to possess it. And the Lord shall scatter thee among all 
people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other ; and 
there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy 
fathers have known, even wood and stone. And among these na- 
tions shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot 
have rest : but the Lord shall give thee a trembling heart, and 
failing of eyes, and sorrows of mind : and thy life shall hang in 
doubt before thee ; thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have 
none assurance of thy life : in the jnorning thou shalt say, Would 
God it were even ! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were 
morning ! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, 
and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see." I need 
not quote from the prophecies of Malachi, nor from those of Jc- 



JERUSALEM AND THE JEWS. 413 

remiah; all corroborate the same thing. It was literally true 
that the " mothers that gave suck in those days," to use the lan- 
guage of our Lord, felt the weight of the predicted "wo." It 
is literally true that the very priests that were officiating at the 
altar felt the vibrations of the earthquake that was undermining 
its great foundations preparatory to the invasion of Titus. It is 
perfectly true, that the high-priests and others officiating at the 
altar, as recorded by Josephus, (who was anxious to cover the 
shame and magnify the glory of his people,) heard sounding from 
all the chambers of the holy place mysterious words they could 
not comprehend, and were unable to suppress, "Arise, let us go 
hence." It is true that a prophet appeared upon the walls of 
Jerusalem, while it was undergoing its last dread siege, and cried 
for a whole year, "Wo, wo to Jerusalem!" till, smitten down by 
a stone, he died, crying, "Wo to myself !" on which Titus 
marched into the midst of it, and laid it utterly desolate. When 
Titus came into the city, even after it had been sacked, and its 
streets were running with the blood of its slain, and the Jews with 
infatuated fury were massacring each other, and women eating 
their first-born, as I have shown before, when referring to the ful- 
filment of this prophecy; he was so struck with the splendour of 
that glorious fane, that he even quailed before its awful majesty — 
so quailed, and was so awed, that he called to his soldiers, "What- 
ever you destroy, spare this temple, and the holy place." But 
he had scarcely said so, when an infuriated soldier, we are told 
by Josephus, threw a firebrand into the midst of the holy place ; 
and the overshadowing cherubim, and the mercy-seat, and all the 
glory of Israel, perished in the flames. God had said, "It shall 
be destroyed ;" and even a Titus was unable to avert by his power 
what G-od had predicted in his infallible word. 

The present state of Palestine is proof of the fulfilment of the 
prediction of the overspreading abomination and its utter desola- 
tion. I need not state what has been frequently recorded by his- 
torians, what is indicated in almost every page of the books of 
Moses, that Palestine was a land of unparalleled fertility and 
beauty in ancient times. It was called the land that overflowed 
with milk and honey: the milk indicating the number and the 
value of its cattle, and the honey indicating the fragrance and 

35* 



414 PROPHETIC STUDIES, 

the number of its flowers. Grapes were so abundant in that 
land that they were used as we use the commonest vegetables; 
the mountain sides were clothed to their top with vines; it was 
a land fitted to be the vineyard and the granary of Asia and 
Europe together. But after you have read the accounts as given 
by Moses of its wonderful fertility, and also the predictions of its 
approaching desolation, on visiting that land you will find that 
God walks the fields of Palestine, pointing with a mysterious 
finger to every nook, and stone, and acre, and ruin, and askiDg 
the skeptic infidel that goes there to blaspheme, or the infidel 
politician that doubts its coming restoration, " Is not my word 
true? and is not all I prophesy, like all I promise, yea and 
amen ?" It is literally true that in this land the sun has become 
like brass, and rent its once fertile, but now parched soil, into 
thousands of fissures. It is literally true that its rain has be- 
come powder and dust. The plague, the pestilence, and the 
famine start forth on their dread march from the veiy spot 
where the holy place and the cherubim were. Its cities are 
mouldering in the sun; its population has become thinner every 
year; tombs are traceable on almost every acre; while the re- 
mains, as noticed by historians, indicate that it was once the city 
of a vast "and teeming population. The mystic Euphrates, which 
is soon to be dried up, has overspread the whole land with vast 
torrents of wandering Turks and plundering Arabs, the followers 
and professors of the religion of the false prophet. You recollect 
that under the sixth vial it is said, that the Euphrates should 
be dried up : I showed this to denote the waning or wasting of 
Turkish power prior to the restoration of the Jews to their own 
land. That river has now overspread Palestine. The bare- 
footed monk walks where the temple was; the muezzim cries 
every day from his minaret, " There is but one God, and Mo- 
hammed is his prophet." That race, scattered throughout the 
whole earth — the race of God's ancient people — have but to read 
their ancient prophets, and then visit Palestine, or read the his- 
tory of its present state, to learn how truly God has spoken, and 
how terribly they themselves have been punished. A traveller, 
celebrated for his taste, and for the brilliancy of his genius — I 
mean Chateaubriand — writes in the following terms of the pre- 



JERUSALEM AND THE JEWS. 415 

sent state of Palestine, (I quote his words because they are a 
commentary upon what God predicted:) "If I should live a 
thousand years, I can never forget that desert which was round 
about Jerusalem, which seemed still as inspired with the majesty 
of Jehovah and the terrors of death. We travelled laboriously 
amid mournful regions to attain the summit of a hill at a dis- 
tance before us. Arriving here, we rode for another hour upon 
an elevated naked plain, sown, as it were, with round masses of 
stone. Suddenly, at the extremity of this plain I perceived a 
line of Gothic walls, flanked with square towers, enclosing appa- 
rently the roofs of some buildings. At the foot of these walls 
appeared a camp of Turkish cavalry [the overflowing of abomi- 
nation] in their Oriental pomp. The guide instantly exclaimed, 
' Behold the holy city ! Behold Jerusalem !' The most extra- 
ordinary forms of objects declare it to be on all sides a country 
which has groaned under miracles : the burning sun — the fierce 
eagle — the barren fig-tree — all the poetry and all the painting of 
the Scriptures are here. Every local name retains within it 
some mystery; every cavern speaks of futurity; each rocky 
height reverberates the accents of some prophecy which God 
himself has spoken within its walls; the wasting rivers, the 
cloven rocks, yawning tombs, attest the prodigy. The desert 
seems still stricken dumb with terror, as if it had not yet dared 
to break that silence which was felt when the voice of the 
Eternal had been heard." Such is the testimony as to its pre- 
sent condition of one who visited it, and who looked upon it 
with a poet's and a Christian's eye. We have merely to read 
any history of its present condition to see how completely history 
is an echo to the prophecies of God. 

While speaking of Jerusalem's ruin, we cannot but notice that 
that rain has a limit. It is to be, says the prophet, "until that 
determined shall be poured upon the desolate/' and unto the end 
of the desolations so determined. We gather from this that 
God's anger toward Jerusalem has a limit — nay, we are certain 
it has, for the prophet himself, inspired by God, has declared, 
" Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man 
went through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy 
of many generations. Thou shalt also suck the milk of the 



416 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

Gentiles, and shalt suck the breast of kings: and thou shalt 
know that I the Lord am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the 
mighty one of Jacob. For brass I will bring gold, and for iron 
I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron : I 
will also make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteous- 
ness. Yiolence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor 
destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Sal- 
vation, and thy gates Praise. The sun shall be no more thy 
light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light 
unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting . light, 
and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down ; nei- 
ther shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine 
everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. 
Thy people also shall be all righteous : they shall inherit the 
land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, 
that I may be glorified." Now it is not fair to take this pro- 
phecy from Jerusalem, and apply it to the Gentile : its truths 
are applicable to us only as all great moral and spiritual truths 
are; it relates expressly to the restoration of Jerusalem; it is 
meant to console and awaken the Jews in the midst of their 
ruin; and at this moment many a Jew is sustained in his hopes, 
and kept peculiar and insulated from the rest of the nations of 
the earth, because in the records of the desolation of his ancient 
and glorious capital he reads the thrilling prophecy that Jeru- 
salem shall be rebuilt, and that the Lord shall be to him his 
everlasting light, and his God his glory. 

In looking at the whole of this prophecy, I would notice, first 
of all, that we have here a strong evidence of the inspiration of 
the prophet Daniel. What he so minutely predicted has been 
most minutely fulfilled. The inference from that is, that that 
man was inspired by God who could look along the vista of 500 
years, who could specify the time that should elapse till a given 
event, who should declare what was done by and in that event, 
who should proclaim what should be the consequence of that 
event. The ceasing of the daily sacrifice; the departure of all 
the remains of ancient glory from the temple; the blasting, 
withering, and fading of the fig-tree, that great and ancient 
memorial of Judah; Titus smiting it with the sword; his sol- 



JERUSALEM AND .THE JEWS. 417 

diers consuming it with the firebrands; the modern synagogue 
standing up in the midst of every capital — an artificial copy of 
the ancient temple, hut destitute of the altar, the sacrifice, the 
oblation, the priesthood, — are all standing and eloquent proofs, 
not only that God is the God of truth, but that Daniel spake, 
as other holy men spake of old, as they were moved by the Holy 
Ghost. 

We learn, too, that the great cause of the desolation of Jerusa- 
lem and of the fulfilment of all the menaces of God upon it, was 
not the decree of God, but their own sins. God had predicted its 
ruin, but his prediction did not bring that ruin down • it was the 
sins of the people that paved the way for the march of the legions 
of Titus ; it was their murdering of the Lord of glory that was 
the deed which consummated their crimes, which awoke the sleep- 
ing earthquakes, and made the sky above Palestine to be as brass, 
its rains to be as dust, its cities to be as sepulchres, and the only 
memorials of its faded magnificence to be tombs, wrecks, and ruin. 
It was sin, not God's prediction, that laid Jerusalem low. Our 
Saviour only echoed the ancient prophecy when he said, " 
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest 
them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have "gathered 
thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens 
under her wings, and ye would not V And over that great city, 
as over the grave of Lazarus — the scenes of the two great inci- 
dents in the history of Jesus — it is said " Jesus wept" — wept 
when he saw its hopeless ruin, its fading glory, its perishing 
people, their rejection of the gospel, their departure and apostasy 
from the living God. 

We learn from this, too, that great privileges abused ever bring 
down great judgments on the people that abuse them. Privileges 
do not commend us to God; they commend God to us. No people 
are saved because they have privileges ; they are only made thereby 
responsible. The greater the privileges that God has given you, 
not therefore the greater the safety you shall have, but the greater 
the responsibility that rests upon you. Chorazin, Bethsaida, Tyre r 
and Siclon perished by their sins ; but when Jerusalem fell, it fell 
from a height of responsibility and privilege to which Tyre had 
never reached, and therefore its fall was all but final. When an 



418 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

angel falls lie becomes a fiend. The depth of our ruin is iu the 
ratio of the height to which God's goodness and our privileges 
have elevated us. If God spared not Jerusalem, the city that he 
loved, when Jerusalem forsook him, God will not spare London, 
the city he has privileged, when London proves untrue to him. It 
is as applicable to the 19 th century as to the age in which it was 
first uttered, " Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach 
to any people." Sin is disorganization ; and wherever it is intro- 
duced, there society loses all its cohesive properties, becomes a 
rope of sand, ready to fall asunder when the external repressive 
power that keeps it together is for a moment withdrawn. But 
let a people be leavened with real religion ; let our homes be 
vocal with prayer, with thanksgiving and praise; let our churches 
be pure, steadfast, protesting against apostasy, and maintaining 
truth j let our pulpits resound with evangelical religion ; let our 
people of all classes, and in all ranks, and of all degrees, from 
the highest to the lowest, fear God, honour his ordinances, and 
walk before him; then the nation will have in its bosom, if 
any nation can have it, the element of immortality. God never 
forsakes a people till that people forsake him. Nations rarely 
fall by external assault ; it is generally by internal corruption. 
We need never tremble about our safety : though France should 
send afloat yet a mightier fleet than she has at Cherbourg, 
though Napoleon's military avalanches should again rush down 
from the Pyrenees and the Alps, though popes should send ship- 
loads of cardinals, our island may rest upon the waters, and 
smile, in conscious security, while our country cleaves to our 
country's God. But let irreligion, pantheism, popery, and infi- 
delity, and drunkenness, and Sabbath-breaking, and all the sins 
that do abound — and, I fear in many quarters, increasingly 
abound — gain the mastery ; and let protesting voices, and plead- 
ing cries, and praying hearts be still ; then our palladium is 
gone, the shields of the Lord are removed. The least aggression 
will ruin the country that has lost God ; the mightiest arma- 
ment shall fail to scathe it when God is recognised as its strength, 
its glory, its portion. Righteousness, I repeat, exalteth a nation, 
and sin is the ruin of any people. 

We learn, too, that when sin thus runs along the streets, de- 



JERUSALEM AND THE JEWS. 419 

grades and denies the people universally, nothing it can attempt 
can save it. All the policy of imperial Rome ; all the manoeu- 
vring and compromises of the priests, the scribes, and the 
Sadducees; all the coalitions into which the people of Jerusalem 
entered, were utterly unable to avert their ruin ; they rather con- 
tributed to hasten its sure and certain doom, just because sin was 
there. So, to apply it to other nations ; the arms and squadrons 
of Xerxes, the legions of Caesar, the armies of Napoleon, did not 
save them ; and the wooden walls of England will not guard us, 
or any other nation, from utter ruin, if we do not keep ourselves 
in the faith, the fear, and the hope of the gospel. When I speak 
of national religion, I do not mean some transcendental view of it : 
one way for us to have national religion for all practical purposes 
is for each man to be a Christian. It is not by struggling to 
carry some measure in the House of Commons, however valuable 
it may be, that we shall make our nation Christian ; it is by each 
man being so. One brick laid upon the ground does more to 
complete a building than a thousand castles built in the air. One 
family becoming truly and decidedly Christian is a greater con- 
tribution to the Christianity of our land than the most brilliant 
act of Parliament : I do not undervalue the latter ; yet the days 
for getting such acts are ceasing, whereas the days for being 
Christians are multiplying. Never were men more called upon 
than in the present day to "be steadfast, immovable, always 
abounding in the work of the Lord." 

We learn from all these predictions — to leave for a moment 
the immediate topic under review, and to revert to all we have 
been contemplating in the nine chapters of Daniel, over which I 
have so rapidly passed — what man is without true religion. The 
magi of Chaldea showed themselves to be but fools ; Nebuchad- 
nezzar, Cyrus, Belskazzar, the royal despots of the earth — how 
poor are they, how lustreless, beside the quiet grandeur of the 
prophet Daniel, and the three Hebrew youths that counted not 
their lives dear for Christ's sake ! The gospel elevates the 
humblest and ennobles the highest ; to the grandeur of the man 
it adds all the glory of the saint, and makes individuals and 
nations beautiful in that real and only beauty which the king's 



420 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

daughter alone has — the beauty of holiness, and righteousness, 
and truth. 

We learn, too, how Grod rules and acts in all the affairs of men. 
The great image was the shadow of what all history is : a nation's 
dignity was merely a higher or lower place assigned it in the 
great image — being clay, or iron, or silver, or gold, as Grod might 
appoint. The same Grod that ruled in Babylon is the God that 
rules now. "Grod is" not Grod was; or, rather, "Jehovah is his 
name ; Grod, who was, and is, and is to come." 

How important must the Saviour have been felt to be by 
Daniel ; and how important was he known to be of Grod, seeing 
that all prophecy is literally the testimony of Jesus ! Daniel 
cannot close a great cycle in his prophecy without closing it with 
the exhibition of the Prince the Messiah ; Isaiah's harp never 
rises to its noblest strains except when he tunes it to the Name, 
and sweeps it in the prospect of, a coming Messiah; Malachi 
closes the Old Testament prophecy, as Daniel closes his pre- 
dictions, by giving the glad hope that the Messiah, the Sun of 
righteousness, was about to rise with healing under his wings. 
Christ is the key-note of all the songs of David, the burden of 
all prophecy, the alpha and the omega of the whole Bible. 

We gather another lesson also — that the same religion we have, 
Daniel had : he was as much a Christian as Martin Luther, Cecil, 
Newton, Whitefield, or any other great and distinguished Chris- 
tian or minister of Christ in modern times. There never was 
sanctioned by Grod but one true religion. There are many current 
religions ; there is and has been but one that bears the super- 
scription and the stamp of Grod. There is the religion of man, 
the religion of the priest ; but there is but one that is true — that 
is, the religion of Grod. This Christianity is as truly, if not as 
clearly, in the Old Testament as in the New. Isaiah was as truly 
an evangelist as John ; so much so, that he has been called the 
evangelical prophet, although that phrase is objectionable, for 
Jeremiah, Malachi, and Daniel were just as evangelical as Isaiah. 
They all proclaimed one Saviour ', they all taught one sacrifice ; 
they all built up our hopes of glory upon one great foundation, 
Christ Jesus. The overshadowing angels on the mercy-seat, like 
the Old and New Testaments, while the tips of their wings 



JERUSALEM AND THE JEWS. 421 

touched each other, both looked down upon one propitiatory or 
mercy-seat Like the twin lips of an oracle, the old covenant 
and the new equally utter and announce Christ and him crucified 
as the great substance of the hopes of men. 

And what dignity, let me add, in the next place, does this 
give to God's word; and what a lowly, though an important place 
does prophecy impart to man's history ! There is something 
wonderfully striking in this — that the calendars of nations are 
the commentaries on the prophecies of God's word. Whenever 
the historian is wanted, Josephus steps forth from his country, 
and Gibbon emerges from the shadow of the Alps where he 
sojourned, Alison comes from the north, Hume leaves infidelity, 
and each sits down to write facts; Christians read the facts; and 
lo ! they are the rebounds of prophecy, the echoes of God's 
ancient word; and, consciously or unconsciously, the skeptic 
Hume, and atheistic Gibbon, the accomplished and Christian 
Alison, the Jew Josephus, attest in their histories that God's 
word is true, and that "holy men of old spake as they were 
moved by the Holy Ghost." So, in the same manner, every thing 
that is now discovered, every thing that daily occurs, serves more 
and more to show the truth of God's word. Daniel writes, two 
thousand years ago, that toward the end of our dispensation 
" many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased ;" 
and to prove Daniel's prediction, the railway appears, and with it 
the mysterious whispering wire, that knits together isles and 
continents, so that the mother in London will yet convey mes- 
sages in a few minutes to her son at Calcutta, and receive a 
message in reply; all spring up when the moment comes, to 
testify how truly the ancient prophet spake, when he said, "Many 
shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." 

In the next place, how humbling to great men are the truths 
embodied in the word of God ! Hannibal, Caesar, Napoleon, all 
the great, generals and mighty captains that have successively 
stepped upon the stage to win splendour for their names, and 
glory for the armies of their country, to vindicate injured rights, 
to deliver oppressed nations; came forward, as ihej meant, to do 
their own behests, and lo ! they are found to have been doing- 
God's word, filling up the great outline of God's predicted and 

36 



422 PROPHETIC STUDIES. 

pre-written Providential government; and so Hannibal, Caesar, 
Alexander, and Napoleon were "but the pens that the ready writer 
used — but the chisels in the hand of the Great Statuary, as he 
carved out in. history what he had so clearly predicted in ancient 
prophecy. When we take our stand on prophetic ground, what 
composure, what quiet does it give us to see this, and be satisfied 
(and I am as satisfied of it as I am of my own existence) that 
all things are going right, that every thing is evolving its appro- 
priate issue, that all occurrences are stepping in to fulfil God's 
sure word, and to accomplish God's grand purposes ! Do not be 
alarmed, my dear brother, when a leaf shakes with the wind, as 
if the church of Christ were about to perish. Do not suppose, 
when nations withdraw their endowments, and imperial crowns 
their shields, from the Christian church — when popery enters 
here, and infidelity spreads there, and divisions and exasperation 
abound elsewhere, that the church of Christ is about to fall. It 
remains : it gathers strength from the wreck, and grandeur from 
surrounding ruin. The fracture of the earthen vessel is only the 
letting forth of the inner perfume ; and the noise and quarrels 
and debates that we hear are not the overturning of the glorious 
fabric ; they are only the settling of its sure and its everlasting 
foundation. Let us then acquaint ourselves with God, and with 
God especially as he is revealed in his word, and be at peace. 

In conclusion, let me ask, have you my hearer, my reader, an 
interest in Messiah ? Do you stand in him as the stand-point 
from which you can review all the movements of the nations of 
the earth ? Is it well, first, with thine own soul ? and if it be 
well there, by its being washed in that Saviour's blood, arrayed 
in his righteousness, trusting in his name; then be still, and know 
that he is God; rejoice in the hope of glory, for He in whom 
you trust has engraven you on the palms of his hands, and holds 
you in imperishable remembrance. 



APPENDIX* 



DANIEL. 

" The predictions of things to come relate to the state of the 
church in all ages ; and among the old prophets, Daniel is most dis- 
tinct in order of time, and easiest to be understood ; and, therefore, 
in those things which relate to the last times, he must be made the 
key to the rest." — Sir Isaac Newton's Observations on Daniel. 

" The Jews do not reckon him (Daniel) to be a prophet, and there- 
fore place his prophecies only among the Hagiographa ; and they 
serve the Psalms of David after the same rate. The reason which 
they give for it in respect of both is, that they lived not the prophetic 
manner of life, but the courtly ; David, in his own palace, as king 
of Israel, and Daniel in the palace of the king of Babylon, as one 
of his chief counsellors and ministers in the government of that em- 
pire. And in respect of Daniel they further add, that, although he 
had divine revelations delivered unto him, yet it was not in the pro- 
phetic way, but by dreams and visions of the night, which they 
reckon to be the most imperfect manner of revelation, and below 
the prophetic." — Prideaux's Connection. Anno 534. 

" Never were any prophecies delivered more clearly, or fulfilled 
more exactly, than all these prophecies of Daniel were. Porphyry, 
who was a great enemy of the Holy Scriptures, as well of the Old 
Testament as of the New, acknowledged this. And therefore he 
contends that they were historical narratives, written after the facts 
were done, and not prophetical predictions, foretelling them to come. 
This Porphyry was a learned heathen, born at Tyre, in the year of 
Christ 233, and there called Malchus ; which name, on his going 
among the Greeks, he changed into that of Porphyry, that signifying 

* See at the end of Rev. Dr. Nolan's "Warburton Lectures, and Rev. P. Miles' 
Lectures, to both of which I am indebted for long and useful notes. 

423 



424 APPENDIX. 

the same in the Greek language which Malchus did in the Phoenician, 
the language then spoken at Tyre. He being a bitter enemy to the 
Christian religion, wrote a large volume against it, containing fifteen 
books, whereof the twelfth was wholly against the prophecies of 
Daniel. Those concerning the Persian kings and the Macedonian 
that reigned as well in Egypt as in Asia, having been all, according 
to the best historians, exactly fulfilled, he could not disprove them 
by denying their completion ; and therefore, for the overthrowing of 
their authority, he took the quite contrary course, and laboured to 
prove their truth ; and from hence alleged, that being so exactly true 
in all particulars, they could not therefore be written by Daniel so 
many years before the facts were done, but by some one else under 

his name, who lived after the time of Antiochus Epiphanes 

For which purpose, he made use of the best Greek historians then 
extant. Such were Callinicus Sutorius, Diodorus Siculus, Hierony- 
nius, Polybius, Posidonius, Claudius Theon, and Andronicus Aly- 
pius ; and from them made evident proof that all that is written in 
the eleventh chapter of Daniel, was truly, in every particular, acted 
and done in the order as there related ; and from this exactness of 
completion, endeavoured to infer the assertion mentioned, that these 
prophecies were written after the facts were done, and therefore are 
rather historical narratives relating to things past, than prophetical 
predictions, foreshowing things afterward to come. But Jerome 
turns the argument upon him, and, with more strength of reason, 
infers that this way of opposing these prophecies gives the greatest 
evidence of their truth, in that what the prophet foretold is hereby 
allowed to be so exactly fulfilled, that he seemed to unbelievers not 
to foretell things to come, but to relate things past. Jerome, in his 
Comments on Daniel, makes use of the same authors that Porphyry 
did ; and what is in these Comments are all the remains which we 
now have of this work of that learned heathen, or of most of those 
authors which he made use of in it." — Prideaux's Connection. Anno 
164. 



PROPHECY AND HISTORY. 

" Whatever is now done was foretold ; whatever is now seen, was 
first heard. If earthquakes swallow up cities ; if islands are in- 
vaded by the sea ; if foreign and domestic wars distract states ; if 
kingdom rises up against kingdom; if there are famine, and pesti- 
lence, and slaughters in divers places; if the wild beasts of the 
mountains lay waste many regions ; if the humble are exalted, and 
the lofty laid low ; if justice is rare, and iniquity abounds; if the 
regard for every good and wholesome discipline waxes cold ; if even 



APPENDIX. 425 

the times and seasons vary from their appointed order, all these have 
been predicted by the Providence of God. While we suffer these 
calamities we read of them ; when we recognise them as the objects 
of prophecy, the truth of the Scriptures which predict them is 
proved. The daily fulfilment of prophecy is, surely, a full proof of 
revelation. Hence, then, we have a well-founded belief in many 
things which are yet to come, namely, the confidence arising from 
our knowledge of the past, because some events, still future, were 
foretold at the same time with others which are past. The voice of 
prophecy speaks alike of each ; the Scriptures record them equally ; 
the same Spirit taught the prophets both. In the predictions, there 
is no distinction of time ; if there be any such distinction, it is made 
by men ; while the gradual course of time makes that present which 
was future, and that past which was present. How can we, then, 
be blamed for believing also what is predicted respecting the future, 
when our confidence is founded upon the fulfilment of prophecies 
relating to the present and the past?" — The Apology of Tertullian, 
ch. xx., Chevallier's trans. 



THE FORCE OE PROPHECY. 

" Suppose that, instead of the spirit of prophecy breathing more 
or less in every book of Scripture, predicting events relative to a 
great variety of general topics, and delivering, besides, almost innu- 
merable characteristics of the Messiah, all meeting in the person of 
Jesus, there had been only ten men in ancient times who pretended 
to be prophets, each of whom exhibited only Jive independent criteria 
as to place, government, concomitant events, doctrine taught, effects 
of doctrine, character, sufferings, or death ; the meeting of all 
which, in one person, should prove the reality of their calling as 
prophets, and of his mission in the character they have assigned 
him : suppose, moreover, that all events were left to chance merely, 
and we were to compute, from the principle employed by mathema- 
ticians in the investigation of such subjects, the probability of these 
Jifty independent circumstances happening at all. Assume that 
there is, according to the technical phrase, an equal chance for the 
happening or the failure of any one of the specified particulars, then 
the probability against the occurrence of all the particulars in any 
way, is that of the 50th power of 2 to unity; that is, the probability 
is greater than 1125,000,000,000,000 to 1, or greater than eleven hun- 
dred and twenty-Jive millions of millions to one, that all these circum- 
stances do not turn up, even at distinct periods. This computation, 
however, 13 independent of the consideration of time. Let it then 

36* 



426 APPENDIX. 

be recollected further, that if any one of the specified circumstances 
happen, it may be the day after the delivery of the prophecy, or at 
any period from that time to the end of the world ; this will so in- 
definitely augment the probability against the contemporaneous oc- 
currence of merely these Jifty circumstances, that it surpasses the 
power of numbers to express correctly the immense improbability of 
its taking place. Be it remembered, also, that in this calculation I 
have assumed the hypothesis most favourable to the adversaries of 
prophecy, and the most unfavourable possible to the well-being of 
the world and the happiness of its inhabitants ; namely, the hypo- 
thesis that every thing is fortuitous ; and it will be seen how my ar- 
gument is strengthened by restoring things to their proper state. 
If every thing were left to blind chance, it appears that the proba- 
bility against the fulfilment of only fifty independent predictions in 
the same time, place, and individual, would be too great to express, 
numerically ; how much greater, then, must it be, in fact, when all 
events are under the control of a Being of matchless wisdom, power, 
and goodness, who hates fraud and deception, who must especially 
hate it when attempted under his name and authority, who knows 
all that occurs in all places, and who can dissipate, ' with the breath 
of his mouth/ every deceiver, and all their delusions? The more 
we know of the prophecies, and of history, whether sacred or pro- 
fane, the more we are struck with the correspondence of predictions 
and events ; their coincidence, in hundreds of instances, is so pal- 
pably notorious that none can deny it: every principle of reason, 
every result of correct computation, instituted with a view to this 
inquiry, is in favour of the positions maintained by Christians in all 
ages. Imagine these to be still doubtful, and what is there else that 
is stable and certain V — Letters of Dr. Olintlius Gregory, Letter VI. 
(See Emerson on Chances, Prop. 3 ; Wood's Algebra, Art. 419, 
Chances.) 



THE POUR GREAT EMPIRES. 

" It was from Daniel's prophecy, too, that the distinction first 
arose of the four great empires of the world, which hath been fol- 
lowed by most historians and chronologers in their distribution of 
times. These four empires, as they are the subject of this prophecy, 
are likewise the subject of the most celebrated pens, both in former 
and in later ages. The histories of these empires are the best writ- 
ten, and the most read of any ; they are the study of the learned 
and the amusement of the polite ; they are of use both in schools 
and in senates ; we learn them when Ave are young, and we forget 



APPENDIX. 427 

them not when we are old ; from hence examples, instructions, laws, 
and politics are derived for all ages ; and very little, in comparison, 
is known of other times or of other nations." — Bishop Newton on 
the Prophecies, Diss. 13. 



THE STONE, 

"In an ancient book of theirs, written by It. Simeon Ben Jochai, 
the author interprets this stone, cut out of the mountain without 
hands, to be the same with him who, in Gen. xlix. 24, is called the 
Shepherd and Stone of Israel; as it is by Saadiah Gaon, a later 
writer ; and in another of their writings, reckoned by them very 
ancient, it is said that the ninth king (for they speak often) shall be 
the King Messiah, who shall reign from one end of the world to the 
other, according to that passage, the stone xohich smote the image, &c. 
verse 35; and in one of their ancient Midrashes, or expositions, it is 
interpreted of the King Messiah : and so R. Abraham Seba." — Dr. 
Gill's Commentary on Daniel, ii. 34. 



CITY OF BABYLON. 

" And, besides these, there were also four half-streets, which were 
built but of one side, as having the wall on the other. These went 
round the four sides of the city, next the walls, and were each of 
them two hundred feet broad, and the rest were about one hundred 
and fifty. By these streets thus crossing each other, the whole city 
was cut out into six hundred and seventy-six squares, each of which 
was four furlongs and a half on every side, that is, two miles and a 
quarter in compass. Round these squares, on every side toward the 
streets, stood the houses, all built three or four stories high, and beau- 
tified with all manner of adornments toward the streets. The space 
within, in the middle of each square, was all void ground, employed 
for yards, gardens, and other such uses." — Prideaux. Anno 570. 

" For the further securing of the country, Nebuchadnezzar built 
also prodigious banks of brick and bitumen on each side of the 
river, to. keep it within its channel, which were carried along from 
the head of the said canals down to the city, and some way below it. 
But the most wonderful part of the work was within the city itself; 
for there, on each side of the river, he built from the bottom of it a 



428 APPENDIX. 

great -wall, for its banks, of brick and bitumen, which was of the 
same thickness with the walls of the city; arid, over against every 
street that crossed the said river, he made, on each side, a brazen 
gate in the said wall, and stairs leading down from it to the river, 
from whence the citizens used to pass by boat from one side to the 
other, which was the only passage they had over the river, till the 
bridge was built which I have above mentioned. The gates were 
open by day, but always shut by night. And this prodigious work 
was carried on, on both sides of the river, to the length of one hun- 
dred and sixty furlongs, which are twenty miles of our measure, and 
therefore must have begun two miles and a half above the city, and 
continued down two miles and a half below it ; for through the city 
was no more than fifteen miles." — Prideaux. Anno 570. 

"Next this temple, on the same east side of the river, stood the old 
palace of the kings of Babylon, being two miles in compass. Ex- 
actly over against it, on the other side of the river, stood the new 
palace ; and this was that which Nebuchadnezzar built. It was four 
times as big as the former, as being eight miles in compass. It was 
surrounded with three walls, one within another, and strongly forti- 
fied, according to the way of those times." — Ibid. 

" These eight towers, being as so many stories one above another, 
were each of them seventy-five feet high, and in them were many 
great rooms with arched roofs, supported by pillars The up- 
permost story of all was that which was most sacred. . . . Over the 
whole, on the top of the tower, was an observatory, by the benefit of 
which it was that the Babylonians advanced their skill in astronomy 
beyond all other nations. . . . For when Alexander took Babylon, 
Calisthenes, the philosopher, who accompanied him thither, found 
they had astronomical observations for one thousand nine hundred 
and three years backward from that time : which carrieth up the 
account as high as the one hundred and fifteenth year after the flood, 
which was within fifteen years after the tower of Babel was built. 
This account Calisthenes sent from Babylon into Greece to his mas- 
ter Aristotle, as Simplicius, from the authority of Porphyry, delivers 
it unto us in his Second Book De Ccelo." — Ibid. 

" This stood till the time of Xerxes, (b. c. 479 ;) but he, on his re- 
turn from his Grecian expedition, demolished the whole of it, and 
laid it all in rubbish, having first plundered it of all its immense 
riches, among which were several images or statues of massy gold." 
—Ibid. SeeJer.li.44. 



APPENDIX. 429 

"What was most wonderful in it were the hanging gardens, which 
were of so celebrated a name among the Greeks. They contained a 
square of four plethra (that is, of four hundred feet) on every side, 
and were carried up aloft into the air, in the manner of several large 
terraces, one above another, till the highest equalled the height of 
the walls of the city. The ascent was from terrace to terrace, by 
stairs ten feet wide. The whole pile was sustained by vast arches 
built upon arches, one above another, and strengthened by a wall, 

surrounding it on every side, of twenty-two feet in thickness 

On the top of the arches were first laid large flat stones, sixteen feet 
long and four broad, and over them was a layer of reed, mixed with 
a great quantity of bitumen, over which were two rows of bricks, 
closely cemented together by plaster, and then over all were laid 
thick sheets of lead : and all this floorage was contrived to keep the 
moisture of the mould from running away clown through the arches. 
The mould or earth laid hereon was of that depth as to have room 
enough for the greatest trees to take rooting in it ; and such were 
planted all over it in every terrace, as were also all other trees, 
plants, and flowers, that were proper for a garden of pleasure. In 
the upper terrace there was an aqueduct or engine, whereby water 
was drawn up out of the river, which from thence watered the whole 
garden." — Prideaux. Anno 570. 



THE SON OF MAN. 

" This Son of Man the Jews themselves confess to be the promised 
Messias, and they take the words to signify his coming, and so far 
give testimony to the truth ; but then they evacuate the prediction 
by a false interpretation, saying, that if the Jews went on in their 
sins, then the Messias should come in humility, according to the de- 
scription in Zachary, lowly, and riding upon an ass, (ix. 9;) but if 
they pleased God, then he should come in glory, according to the 
description in the prophet Daniel, ivith the clouds of heaven: whereas 
these two descriptions are two several predictions, and therefore 
must be both fulfilled. From whence it followeth, that being Christ 
is already come, lowly, and silting upon an ass, therefore he shall 
come gloriously with the clouds of heaven. For if both those de- 
scriptions cannot belong to one and the same advent, as the Jews ac- 
knowledge, and both of them must be true, because equally pro- 
phetical, then must there be a double advent of the same Messias." 
"Indeed, the Jews do so generally interpret this place of Daniel of 



430 



APPENDIX. 



the Messias, that they make it an argument to prove that the Messias 
is not yet come, because no man hath yet come with the clouds of 
heaven." — Bishop Pearson on the Creed, Article VII. 



THE MILLENNIUM. 



" That the kingdom in Daniel and that of 1000 years in the Apo~ 
calypse are one and the same kingdom, appears thus : — 

"First. Because they begin ah eodem termino, namely at the de- 
struction of the Fourth Beast : that in Daniel, when the beast (then 
ruling in the wicked horn) was slain, and his body destroyed and 
given to the burning flame, Dan. vii. 11, 22, 27. That in the Apo- 
calypse, when the beast and the false prophet (the wicked horn in 
Daniel) were taken, and both cast alive into a lake of fire, burning 
with brimstone, Apoc. xix. 20, 21, &c. 

" Secondly. Because St. John begins the Regnum of a thousand 
years from the same session of judgment described in Daniel, as ap- 
pears by his parallel expression borrowed from thence. 



Daniel says, chap. vii. 

Ver. 9. I beheld till the thrones were 
pitched down . . . and the judg- 
ment (i. e. judges) sat. 

22. And judgment was given to the 
saints of the Most High. 
And the saints possessed the king- 
dom; viz. with the Son of Man 
who came in the clouds. 



St. John says, chap. xx. 

Ver. 4. I saw thrones, and they sat 
upon them. 

And judgment was given unto them. 

And the saints lived and reigned 
with Christ a thousand years. 



" Now if this be sufficiently proved, that the thousand years begin 
with the day of judgment, it will appear further, out of the Apo- 
calypse, that the judgment is not consummate till they be ended; for 
Gog and Magog's destruction and the universal resurrection, is not 
till then ; therefore the whole thousand years is included in the day 
of judgment. 

" Hence it will follow, that whatsoever Scripture speaks of a 
kingdom of Christ, to be at his second appearing or at the destruc- 
tion of Antichrist, it must needs be the same which Daniel saw 
should be at that time, and so consequently be the kingdom of a 
thousand years, which the Apocalypse includes between the beginning 
and consummation of the great judgment. 

"Ergo, that in Liike xvii. from verse 20 to the end. 

"And that in Luke xix. from the 11th verse to the 15th inclu- 
sively 



APPENDIX, 431 

" And that in Luke xxi. 31. When ye see these things come to pass, 
know that the kingdom of God is at hand. See what went 
before, viz. The Son of Man's coming in a cloud with power and 
great glory ; borrowed from Daniel. 
"And that in 2 Tim. iv. 1. I charge thee before God, and the Lord 
Jesus Christ, zoho shall judge the quick and the dead at his ap- 
pearing and his kingdom. 
" By these we may understand the rest ; taking this for a sure 
ground, that this expression of [The Son of Man's coming in the 
clouds of heaven] so often inculcated in the New Testament, is taken 
from and hath reference to the prophecy of Daniel, being nowhere 
else found in the Old Testament." — Mede, Book IV. Epist. 15, page 
763. See likewise Book III., page 532 ; also Wintle on Ban. vii. 14. 



The following very important discussion I take from Hengsten- 



TRACES OF THE BOOK IN PRE-MACCABEAN TIMES. 

" To the external arguments of the genuineness belong, lastly, the 
traces of the existence of our book in the pre-Maccabean times. If 
those traces are not of such a nature as to suffice alone for a proof 
of the genuineness, and to have equal weight with really important 
counter arguments, yet, since such counter arguments are nowhere 
to be found, they are, in connection with all the other proofs of the 
genuineness, of no small importance, 

"a. According to Josephus, Arch. xi. 8, 5, the Book of Daniel was 
shown to Alexander the Great, and that prophecy was referred by 
him to himself, in which a Greek was announced as the conqueror of 
the Persian empire. Now, in order to enfeeble this testimony, at- 
tacks have been directed partly against the whole narrative, partly 
against this particular point in it. To judge of the former, we must 
previously place more exactly before us the contents of the nar- 
rative. 

" During the siege of Tyre, Alexander commanded the Jewish 
high-priest to do him homage, and send him troops and provisions. 
The high-priest, true to the oath which he had taken to the still 
living Darius, had refused this. Alexander deferred his revenge till 
the conclusion of the siege of Tyre and Gaza. After that, he 
marched against Jerusalem. The high-priest is in great consterna- 
tion ; public prayers and sacrifices are commanded ; after these he is 
tranquillized by God in a dream, and commanded to go himself, with 



432 APPENDIX. 

the priests in their official habiliments, and with the rest of the 
people in white garments, to meet the conqueror. This is done as 
soon as Alexander approaches the city. The procession meets him 
at a place where there was a view of the city and temple. Alexan- 
der goes immediately to the high-priest, embraces him, and testifies 
his veneration for the name of God on his mitre. To the' wondering 
question of Parmenio, why he, to whom all others testified their 
veneration, honours the Jewish high-priest, Alexander replies, that 
the homage is not rendered to the high-priest, but to his God ; for 
that he had seen Him in a vision in this very expedition, when he 
was yet in Macedonia ; that He had promised to undertake the lead- 
ing of his army, and to give him the Persian dominion ; that this 
coincidence of the dream with the reality gave him a firm hope of 
victory. He then, attended by the high-priest, and surrounded by 
the priests, marched into the city, sacrificed in the temple, according 
to the directions of the high-priest, and showed great honour both to 
him and to the priests. Then they showed him the Book of Daniel. 
On his demanding that he should ask some favour for the people, the 
high-priest asked for exemption from tribute in the seventh year, as 
being the fallow year. Many Jews then, on the command of Alex- 
ander, determined to participate in the expedition. The Samaritans, 
under the pretext that they had affinity with the Jews, tried to ob- 
tain a share in the favours imparted to them ; but in this they did 
not succeed. 

"The truth of this whole account has been assailed, after the ex- 
ample of V. Dale, [dissert sup. Aristeam de LXX. interyrett., p. 68 
sqq.,) by several moderns, on the following grounds: 1. 'The cir- 
cumstance that Alexander, after the conquest of Tyre, marched to 
Gaza, from thence back to Jerusalem, and from thence to Egypt, is 
chronologically false. He would then have made a useless circuit 
of several days. All writers, too, agree that he went immediately 
from Gaza to Egypt. Thus Prideaux, 1. c. hi. p. 115 ; and after him, 
word for word, Griesinger, p. 33.' But there is no difficulty in dis- 
covering the reason why Alexander marched first to Gaza and then 
to Jerusalem. Gaza would seem to him by far the more important ; 
the brave Persian satrap Betis had hired Arabian mercenaries, and 
laid up provisions in that strong city for a long siege ; the walls were 
very high, the siege extremely difficult. (Comp. Arrian exp. Al. p. 
151, ed Blancardi.) Alexander might hope that, if he succeeded in 
taking this place, the rest, including Jerusalem, would submit to 
him without drawing his sword, and the result showed that in this 
calculation he was not deceived. This advantage was certainly well 
worth the circuit of a few days. Moreover, this very representation 
of the march of Alexander, so improbable at first view, speaks in 
favour of the trustworthiness of Josephus. Had he not confined 



appendix. 433 

himself strictly to his authorities, he would certainly have placed 
the coming of Alexander to Jerusalem between the siege of Tyre 
and of Gaza. The statement of the other historical sources, that 
Alexander marched immediately from Gaza to Egypt, proves no- 
thing; it is a mere argumerdum a sttentio, founded on the omission 
of a diversion of some days, which is the less surprising considering 
the abundance of important incidents which the life of Alexander 
affords. Besides, it affects the opponents in like manner; for Alex- 
ander must have been in Jerusalem, as we shall afterward see ; but 
the ancient writers make him pass just as immediately from Tyre to 
Gaza, as from Gaza to Egypt. 2. ' It is not matter of history, when 
Josephus makes Parmenio say to Alexander, that all men offered 
him the Tipoaxvv^ai? [ti Sartor?, npoaxwovvtuv avtbv aridvtcov, out'os 
7tpomvv"Ji6£i£ ?bv 'lovSatcov dp^tfpia.) Not till a later period did Alex- 
ander think of exalting himself into a god, and demanding the 
ttposxvvqGts as an acknowledgment of his divine dignity.' But 
surely nothing was more natural than for the subjects of the Per- 
sian empire to transfer to him the customary mark of honour, even 
without his demanding it ; and that he assumed it willingly may be 
supposed from his subsequent conduct. 3. ' Chaldeans are men- 
tioned in the retinue of the king; yet at that time they were still 
subject to the Persian king.' But what hinders our assuming that, 
even before the taking of Babylon, Chaldee renegades had deserted 
to Alexander, as Josephus seems to intimate in express terms? This 
may the more readily be imagined, as the Babylonians afterward re- 
ceived Alexander with joy, as the restorer of their worship, to which 
the Persians had borne an ill will. 4. ' The dream of the high-priest 
looks very like a fiction/ But if we set aside all supernatural opera- 
tions, and suppose that the high-priest only dreamed what had 
passed through his waking soul, or that he only gave out that he 
dreamed it, certainly all in the narrative that concerns the high 
priest's share in the affair has the highest probability. The whole 
contrivance was admirably suited to the character of Alexander. It 
could not have been forgotten by the high-priest that, on the capture 
of Tyre, Alexander had spared all those who had taken refuge in the 
temple, -that he had sacrificed to Hercules, had instituted a great fes- 
tival in honour of him, and dedicated a Tyrian ship to him. (Comp. 
Ussher. z. J. 3673.) The measure which he chose, therefore, must 
have appeared to him the most suitable for mitigating the wrath of 
Alexander. 

" Let us now pass on to establish the truth of the narrative by 
positive arguments, in which whatever else has been advanced 
against it will find a sufficient reply. 

" In several main particulars the narrative is confirmed by express 
historical testimonies. Arrian says that Judea was not mastered 



434 APPENDIX. 

by force of arms, "but surrendered of its own accord, (l.ii. p. 150: 
xal r\v a'h'iu) ta /xsv a^a tf^j Ua'kai6'z'ivr<; xa7iov^.ivrj^ St'ptaj rtpotiza- 
xapTjxota rjS?].) The personal presence of Alexander in Judea is re- 
marked, apart from Josephus, not only, as Schlosser asserts, 
( WeligescJi. I. p. 170) by the Arabian writer Makrizi, but also by 
Pliny, [Hist, Nat. xii. 26,) who speaks of an observation made in 
natural history in connection with this event. That Jews served in 
the army of Alexander, is reported by the contemporary heathen 
writer Hecat^eus Abderita. How great the favour of Alexander 
must have been toward the Jews, appears from the statement, 
although a false one, of the same writer, (in Jos. c. Ap. II. 4,) that 
Alexander granted to the Jews the region of Samaria. The genuine- 
ness of this book has indeed been called in question by an anon} r - 
rnous author in Eichhorn's Bibl. f. bibl. Litt. Th. 5, p. 432, sqq., 
who maintains that the writing was forged by some nameless Jew. 
But the only argument advanced for this assertion, the predilection 
for the Jews displayed in the fragments of Hecatseus, is, as Zorn 
has already shown, (Hectcei Abel, fragmenta. Alton. 1730, ami. p. 5,) 
certainly not sufficient to establish it. It must be well remembered 
that those who have preserved to us the fragments of Hecat.eus, 
Josephus, and Eusebius, select only what was favourable to the 
Jews. It appears from the fragments of He-OatjEUS themselves, that 
he was an enlightened heathen, for whom, therefore, Judaism had 
some attractions, and who, as was often the case in those times, had 
a certain leaning toward it. How few external reasons there were 
for suspecting the book, is clear from the fact that even HerEnnhts 
Philo, in Origen c. Celsum, 1. 1, did not venture decidedly to reject 
its genuineness, and that Josephus could dare, in the face of his 
heathen readers, boldly to appeal to its authority. What, moreover, 
is decisive against this assertion, is the great want of acquaintance 
with the older history of the Jews, which the author clearly displays. 
Neither a Jew nor a Jewish proselyte could relate that the Persians 
(instead of the Chaldeans) carried away many myriads of Jews to 
Babylon. So gross an error, also, as that Samaria was granted to 
the Jews, could hardly have come from a Jew. But the favour of 
Alexander toward the Jews is clear from another circumstance. Af- 
ter the founding of Alexandria he not only granted them the free 
observance of their religion and laws, but guaranteed them the same 
privileges in that respect as the Macedonians themselves. (Comp. 
Prideaux, 1. c. p. 126.) But if the favour of Alexander toward the 
Jews is established, we may draw thence a conclusion for the truth 
of the whole narration. For it is correctly observed by Jahn, 
(Archdol. II. i. p. 306,) 'If this principal point, the favour shown 
toward the Jews, be correct, there must have been some great cause 
for it, corresponding to the character of Alexander; and, since that 



APPENDIX. 435 

assigned by Josephus is of such a nature, there is no reason to doub.t 
of it/ We have brought forward this passage, also, that it may be 
seen how correctly Bleek has read, when he maintains, 1. c. p. 184, 
that even Jahn is satisfied to vindicate simply the main fact, the 
favour shown to the Jews, as historically true. Even the special 
circumstance that the high-priest in full costume, and particularly 
with the head-dress, (irtl tyj? xstyaXyjs zzovta t'qv ja'Sapw x. -t. %.,) went 
to meet Alexander, is confirmed by a passage of Justin, xi. 10: 
Tunc in Sgriam projiciscitur, ubi obvios cum infulis multos Orientis 
reges Jiabuit. Ex his pro merilis singidorum aliis in societatem recejnf, 
aliis regiium ademit, suffectis in loca eorum aliis regibus. Final!}', 
the truth of the narrative as a whole is confirmed by other ancient 
Jewish writers, who agree with Josephus in the essential circum- 
stances ; compare the passages in Hess, (Geschichte der Regentenin 
d. Exil. ii. p. 37,) who well deserves to be consulted on this incident. 
" But that which has no express historical confirmation is recom- 
mended so strongly by its internal truth, that we cannot think of 
fiction in the matter. For instance, the behaviour of Alexander is 
so ver\ r correspondent with his historical character, that persons 
have only manifested their ignorance of history in trying from this 
point in particular to obtain arguments against the truth of the nar-, 
ration. Alexander had a twofold reason for his kindly behaviour 
toward the Jews. In the then state of things, (the Persian empire 
was indeed weakened, but not for a long while after conquered,) it 
would be to him of no little importance to lay under obligation to 
him a people who were not insignificant, and in this way to bind 
them firmly to him ; and then the way in which the high-priest came 
to meet him offered him a welcome opportunity of doing it, accord- 
ing to his custom of perverting religion as the means to his ends, 
and representing himself as a favourite of Deity. We maintain, 
against Hess, 1. c. p. 33, that the dream of Alexander, in all proba- 
bility, was fabricated by him. Could any thing else be expected of 
a man who, soon afterward, sent forward persons to bribe the priests 
in the temple of Jupiter Ammon to declare what he wished ? — who, 
on the expedition against the Scythians, demanded from the seer, 
Aristander, when he foretold misfortune, that he should invent 
another prophecy promising success? (Arriax, 1. iv. p. 246) — who, 
when the Chaldeans cautioned him not to go to Babylon, expressed 
his decided disbelief of all prophecy, by quoting the verse of Eu- 
ripides — • 

(Arrian, p. 478,) and yet constantly inquired of the seers? But 
how much the character of Alexander inclined him to such a political 
use of religion, may be shown by many examples. From this ten* 



436 APPENDIX. 

dency of his, various tales originated by which his history r ever; in 
his own time, was disfigured. Thus, the account of the two ravens, 
who, according to the statement of Ptolemy Lagus, led the army on 
the expedition through the wilderness to the temple of Jupiter and 
"back again ; or, according to Calisthenes, in Plutarch, even brought 
back the several stragglers to the army. Men tried by such fables 
to gain the favour of the king, Alexander desired nothing more 
than that, on the expedition to India r certain tribes should receive 
him as the third son of Jupiter. (Prideaux, iii. p. 150.) On his re- 
turn from India he instituted, in imitation of Bacchus, a procession 
of three days. (Prid. p. 153.) In order to attain this end, he sub- 
mitted to exertions and sacrifices in comparison of which the favours 
conferred on the Jews are not deserving of mention. So, in order 
to procure for himself the advantages which the Persian kings de- 
rived from their divine honours, he undertook a tedious, difScult- 
and dangerous journey to the temple of Jupiter Ammon, on which 
he and his whole army nearly perished with thirst. He submitted 
humbly to the demand of the priests, that no one besides himself 
should enter the temple. At a time when his power was much more 
established, he had the temple of Belus, at Babylon,, restored at im- 
mense cost. When it is asserted that Alexander would not have 
condescended to sacrifice in the temple under the direction of the- 
high-priest, it seems to be forgotten that he did the very same thing 
under the direction of the-Chaklean priest, at Babylon,, in the temple 
of Belus ; and, indeed, his whole conduct there is very similar, in a 
religious point of view, to that at Jerusalem. Arrian says, p. 19G : 
±v9u 8rj x&i 'toli; Xa^.Scttotj ivi'tvyj , xai ona iooxec Xa?-5atat 5 ' ctfi^t -ta leph 
ta iv ~BaSv%u)Vi frfpaijs" ?a *£ a?Aa xcd -fa Brp^ xaOa ixilvot 'i^rf/ovvto^ 

&&V&SV. 

" Let us now turn specially to the statement of Josephus, touching 
the prophecies of Daniel. Here also it may be easily shown how 
well it was contrived that the prophecies about himself should be 
laid before Alexander, how extremely suitable to Alexander is the 
behaviour ascribed to him on that occasion. Alexander knew too 
well the influence which prophecy exercised on the whole world at 
that time, not to avail himself of this means, among others, for the 
establishment of his authority and for the gratification of his vanity. 
He endeavoured, by the voices of the seers of the most diverse na- 
tions, to get himself declared the favourite of the gods 7 while in se- 
cret he laughed at superstition, certainly at least when the prophe- 
cies were not altogether to his mind. Plutarch remarks generally, 
as characteristic of him, that he always prided himself much on hav- 
ing prophecies in his favour, (m! l ufyc\(KiiA.ou{j.sw$ ml -fotj /jLavtzvp.&?>i.) 
The soothsayer, Aristandor, was constantly in his train ; even an or- 
dinary Syrian woman, who passed for a prophetess, was not con- 



APPENDIX. 437 

sidered by him too mean to bo allowed access to him day and night, 
(compare Arrian", p. 269 ;) the priests of Jupiter Amnion must 
make him out by an oracle to be a son of their god ; the Chaldean 
sages, on his entrance into Babylon, came to meet him in solemn 
procession, and he found much to transact with them. 

"The objections which have been raised against the exhibition of 
the prophecies of Daniel to Alexander, need to be hardly more than 
quoted to show their weakness. 1. ' How could Alexander read a He- 
brew writing? How could he make out the symbolical language? 
Why did he not feel himself offended at seeing himself represented as 
a he-goat, and his great empire as a passing show?' All these ob- 
jections rest on the false supposition, which has not the least founda- 
tion in the text of Joseph us, that Alexander himself read the pro- 
phecies of Daniel. They were shown to him, and he was told their 
contents ; and the king, careless about what was really contained in 
the book, caught eagerly at it, because the alleged contents wore 
quite according to his wish, just as the Assyrians, (compare Ges. zu 
Jes.i. p. 946,) without further inquiry, made use of the Hebrew pro 
phecies, in which, as they might have learnt by mere hearsay, an 
irruption on their side was predicted as a divine judgment. As re 
gards the image of the he-goat, it is judging quite according to our 
ideas in the present day, when it is asserted that it must have ap- 
peared offensive to the king ; in the symbolism of the Babylonians 
and Persians, as we shall hereafter see, the he-goat was a very ho- 
nourable symbol, and Alexander was surely familiar enough by this 
time with the symbolical spirit of the East, not to take such a thing 
offensively. And. besides, just that prophecy which of all pointed 
most distinctly to Alexander, and the one therefore that was proba- 
bly laid before him, chap. xi. 2, 3, is quite destitute of imagery. It 
is true, in the prophecies which foretell Alexander's greatness, there 
is at the same time predicted the speedy dismemberment of his em- 
pire after his death. But who shall say that they did not content 
themselves with imparting to him only just as much as would dispose 
him favourably toward the nation ? And, supposing any one should, 
without reason, assume the contrary, have we not other instances in 
which Alexander, from among prophecies which announced both suc- 
cess and misfortune, joyfully appropriated the former, and allowed 
the others to rest in peace ? (Com p. Arrian, p. 151.) 

"2. 'In both prophecies (viii. 21, xi. 2, 3,) the express command 
was laid on Daniel to close them up or to seal them, and they are 
thus declared to be unintelligible. It must therefore be allowed that, 
in the time of Alexander, no one as yet could understand the mean- 
ing of these prophecies/ This argument again is peculiar to Bleek. 
It is sufficient for its refutation to remark that in the passages quoted 
it is not an absolute obscurity that is spoken of, but that which is 



438 AITENDIX. 

only relative and partial, This is clear, if Dot sufficiently from the 
nature of the case, at least quite so from a comparison of chapter x. 
1 with xii. 8. In the first passage, it is said that Daniel obtained an 
insight into the vision, chap. x. 12; in the second, 'I heard it, but 
understood it not/ and Daniel receives the command to seal up the 
vision, because it was destined for a future period. If a gross con- 
tradiction is not meant to be set up here, one is compelled to take 
the understanding and the non-understanding relatively. But if 
this is the case, then there could not have been, at least as to those 
prophecies which refer to Alexander, especially at the time when 
they had already begun to be fulfilled, a non-understanding, since 
they belong to the clearest in the book. That a Greek would some 
day destroy the Persian empire, is declared in such explicit and di- 
rect terms that even a child must understand it, and nothing further 
was said to Alexander by the Jews, even according to Josephus ; the 
personal reference to himself was his own work. But we will not 
linger any longer on the refutation of such an argument. 

" Thus we think we have sufficiently justified the testimony of 
Josephus to the existence of the Book of 'Daniel in the time of Alex- 
ander the Great, and consequently to its genuineness, since the ques- 
tion can only be whether Daniel is genuine, or Avhether composed in 
the time of Ant. Epiph. Of course, if there existed any decisive 
grounds against the genuineness, the statement of Josephus alone 
would not suffice to invalidate them ; but we have already seen that 
such is not the case. And thus it looks quite gratuitous for Bleek, 
p. 185, to suppose that the Jews might easily have appealed to pro- 
phecies in relation to Alexander, and that it is merely a fiction of 
Josephus to say they were the prophecies of Daniel in particular. 

" We add in conclusion, further, on the historical character of the 
whole relation of Josephus, a remark of a modern historian, whose 
hostile disposition toward revealed religion and toward the chosen 
people, makes him discover in their history, in other respects, a tissue 
of lies and fables, and whose testimony, therefore, as that of an em- 
bittered, blinded enemy, is of peculiar weight. Leo says, in his 
Vorlesungen iiber die Geschichte des Jild. Volkes, p. 200, ' The entire 
tale has nothing improbable in itself: armed- resistance on the part 
of the high-priest would have been folly; he might thus have 
peaceably gone to meet Alexander. And how readily Alexander al- 
lowed the Asiatic world to believe that he stood in near connection 
with the gods of the nations which he had subdued, is known from 
other sources. It has been regarded as improbable that Alexander 
should not have hastened immediately from Gaza to Egypt ; but to 
march from Gaza to Egypt by way of Jerusalem, was, at the most, a 
circuit of only a few days, and Judea no unimportant point in an 



APPENDIX. 439 

expedition to Egypt; this mountain land must on no account bo left 
in the rear, in the hands of enemies/ 

" 6. The dying Mattathias, 1 Mace. ii. 59, 60, exhorts his relatives, 
among other things, to steadfastness, by referring to the example of 
Daniel and his three companions: 'Ananias, Azarias, Misael, by 
believing, were saved out of the flame. Daniel, for his innocency, 
was delivered from the mouth of lions.'* Now several, as Bert- 
holdt, maintain that Mattathias can have had before him here only 
the several tales in question, circulating independently of each other — - 
which assumption rests on the demonstrably incorrect hypothesis of 
a plurality of authors ; or that he may refer to oral tradition, which 
is refuted by the fact that all the other numerous examples adduced 
by him are borrowed, without exception, from the sacred writings. 
Bleek, on the contrary, (p. 183,) allows that the passage is really to 
be regarded as a testimony to our Book of Daniel, but avers that we 
have not here Mattathias's own words, but a discourse put into his 
mouth by the historian. This assertion, it is true, cannot be com- 
bated with decided certainty ; but it could not be rightly considered 
as made out, unless we could from other sources prove the spurious- 
ness of Daniel ; and, since this is not the case, this testimony de- 
serves always to be alleged among the arguments for the genuine- 
ness. Even supposing the correctness of Bleek's position, it is at 
least so far of importance, as it shows how firmly people were per- 
suaded of the genuineness at a time so near the assumed origin of 
the Book of Daniel. A reference to Daniel is perhaps also found in 
the words of Mattathias, 1 Mace. ii. 49 : ' Now is pride established, 
and rebuke, and the time of destruction, and the wrath of indigna- 
tion, 'j- Comp. Dan. viii. 19 : 'Behold I will make thee know what 
shall be in the last end of the indignation ; for at the time appointed 
the end shall be. 'J Mat. appears to intimate that the grievous time 
pointed at by Daniel is now arrived. 

"c. The Alexandrine translators have introduced the doctrine of 
guardian angels of kingdoms, which in the whole of the Old Testa- 
ment occurs only in Daniel, into two passages, in which so small a 
space of it is contained, that only a previous acquaintance with this 
doctrine could have led them to give this translation. In Deut. 
xxxii. 8, (God has defined the boundaries of the people according to 



* J Avow/as, 'A^apJaj, MdoUt/X TiiatsvaavTfs^ eaJiOrjoav Ix $ft.oyoj. Aavtr.X 
h nfyj arCKo'tyj-ti aisTfov Epfjvod'f] ix 6to/J.ato<; "k-covttav. 

"j" Nw ititrjpl^ 7 ] vrtspTjtpavia xai fTityitoj xai xatpoj xaT?a6T?po(pYj$ xai opyjy 
dvfiov. 

% Ibov syw ttrfayyi'xxco (jot a tcrrac srt' i6%d'z'ov t?tJ$ 6py?js Vols viols toy 
Tiaoij gov' iVc- yap tl$ topaj jcaipou 6wt£teLa$ jaeveI. 



440 APPENDIX. 

the number of the children of Israel,) they translate the words 
*?N*")££^ ^S liDDD 7 by, ' according to the number of the angels of 
God ; ; * in Isa. xxx. 4, the words V^&) VD&S/9 iKD VH *3 

t t t t : - i : T 

by, 'For there are in Tanos, as princes, wicked angels.'f It has, on 
the other hand, been objected that the LXX. might have taken the 
dogma thus introduced from the popular 'belief, which originated in 
their intercourse with heathen nations, and independently of the Scrip- 
ture. But we saw before, how unfounded the assertion is that the 
Jews borrowed the doctrine of the tutelary spirits of nations from 
the Persians, among whom it did not all exist; and it is to be well 
observed that this doctrine is by the Jews constantly founded on 
Daniel. (Comp. Eisenmenger, i. p. 806. Jo. a Lent, theologia Jud. p. 
276.) It is true, however, that this argument can only pass for a 
secondary argument, since it must be allowed possible, although not 
probable, that the Jews derived this doctrine from gross misunder- 
standing of some passages of the Bible besides Daniel. 

" d. More important than the two preceding is the proof now to be 
adduced of the existence of the Book of Daniel previously to the 
times of the Maccabees. Here we must begin with making good cer- 
tain presumptions which form the groundwork of it. 

" 1. It is time at length to examine the assertion, which is as 
generally as confidently made, of a Hebrew or Aramaean original of 
the First Book of the Maccabees, now that we have so long and va- 
riously quoted it with its alleged arguments in our favour. This 
examination naturally cannot be instituted here comprehensively, 
and so as to exhaust the subject ; yet this much, at least, may be 
briefly shown, that the arguments hitherto alleged for a non-Greek 
original are not tenable. We are reminded that Origen quotes the 
title of the book in Hebrew, (Grig, in Eus. H. Eccl. vi. 25 : t|co 6s 
tfovtcov s&tfi ?a M.axxaj5a'Cxa, artsp IjtiykypcTt'tWj SapjS^fl Xapfiave Ex.,) 
which, it is said, supposes, of course, that in his time the whole book 
was in existence in Hebrew or Aramaean ; that Jerome had even 
seen the Hebrew original. (Prol.gal.: Maccabceorum primum libruvx 
Hebraicum reperi.) But these testimonies show nothing more than 
that in the time of Origen and Jerome the book existed also in 
Hebrew or Aramaean ; if Origen and Jerome regarded this as the 
original work, that is not at all to the purpose. The Hebrew or 
Aramaean copy might just as well be a translation, as we possess 
such translations of most of such apocryphal writings as were writ- 
ten in Greek. It is further alleged that in the book many expressions 



* Kara apiQjjibv ayyi^Mv ©sou. 

f ' Otv ilclv £V TavJt apxvjyol ciyy&oi, rtov/jpoi. 



APPENDIX. 441 

occur which do not receive their full explanation till they are trans- 
lated back again into Hebrew. But were this argument valid, all 
the books of the New Testament might, with little difficulty, be 
proved to have had a Hebrew or Aramaean original. The occurrence 
of Hebraisms in this book, however, assuming its Greek original, is 
still more conceivable, if we remember that the Greek language was 
then much more recent and strange to the Jews. And, what is 
more, the very Hebraisms which have been produced as the most 
convincing, (comp. e. g. Eicehorn, Elnl. in die Apohr. p. 219, sqq.,) 
are found in the LXX., and, as probably taken by the author from 
them, serve rather for proof that Greek was the language of the 
original. Thus, e. g. for ^Tfoifi6.a9?j tj f3aoi>%£ia £vu>rCiov 'Avtt.6%ov, i. 16, 
comp. 1 Sam. xx. 30, 1 Kings ii. 12, 1 Chron. xvii. 11; for rtaj o 
j£oixyta£" fxtvos tfw voya, ii. 24, comp. Ezra ii. 68, vii. 15, &c. ; for 
aTJkotyvhot, in the sense of Philistines, 1 Kings xiii. 2. Of more im- 
portance would be the proof from errors in translation, if the only 
vouchers that have been adduced for this did not rest on insecure 
assumptions. Thus in chap iv. 16, eVc rfk^povv-tos 'lovSa tavita, ' whilst 
Judas was saying this/ rt^poo is said to be used in a sense quite 

unusual, and only to be explained from the exchange of 770 an( ^ 

K /D- -^ u ^ nere ^ ma y fi rs ^ ^ e a sked whether rt^pow has really the 
meaning ascribed to it, to say, and not rather that which occurs not 
rarely in the LXX. and in the New Testament, to complete, to do. 
In chap. vi. 1, {so-tiv 'ExvydL's iv -tyj Tlspol&o rfo?uj,) we are told, such a 
sad error in the geography as the changing of the province Elymais 
into a city, can only be explained by supposing that the Greek trans- 
lator, from ignorance of geography, translated the Hebrew MJ lD 
as Aquila does, Dan. viii. 2, by city, instead of province. This as- 
sertion might have some plausibility, if there did not occur in the 
Eirst Book of the Maccabees, in the other accounts relating to 
foreign geography and history, numerous and almost as great mis- 
takes. These are all the arguments for a non-Greek original of the 
book. On the contrary, among other things, may be noted the fol- 
lowing. We have above shown that the author of the First Book of 
the Maccabees made use of Daniel ; and that he copied not the 
original, but the LXX., is shown by the frequent verbal agreement 
in the expressions. That the expression fiUhvyixa -tr^ tpi^twaEws is 
borrowed from the LXX. even Bleek, p. 181, allows. Now, it might 
be objected that several of the expressions quoted (although not by 
any means all ; even for J36L t. ip. Tiieodotiox has, chap. 31, (S^Xvyya 
7ido.vii3y.ivov) are translated in the same way by Theodotion, and that 
therefore the agreement of the First Book of the Maccabees with the 
Alexandrine version can only be accidental. But this objection is 



442 APPENDIX. 

rendered invalid, if we consider that Theodotion, not only in general, 
as Jerome and Epiphanius have already remarked, (comp. among the 
moderns, e.g. De Wette, p. 81,) hut in particular in dealing with 
Daniel, as the most cursory comparison will prove, did not by any 
means give a new translation, but only retouched and improved the 
Alexandrine. Now, if the using of the Alexandrine version in the 
First Book of the Maccabees, as it lies before us, is established, is it 
at all likely that the alleged Greek translator introduced this agree- 
ment? Would he not have independently translated, not merely the 
book as a whole, but these particular passages that relate to the 
Book of Daniel? Moreover, Josephus has nowhere made use of a 
non-Greek original ; he rather follows constantly our Greek book, 
and, indeed, often in its very words. The Syrian translator, too, has 
translated from the Greek. Lastly, there is no reason to doubt that 
the Chaldee copy of the First Book of the Maccabees, still existing, 
and edited by Bartolocci, is the same that Origen and Jerome 
meant. This, however, may be immediately seen to be a bad and 
disfigured copy of our First Book of the Maccabees. 

"2. It has been frequently maintained that the First Book of the 
Maccabees could not have been composed till after the death of John 
Hyrcanus, (106 b. c.,) because, according to chap. xvi. 23, 24," the 
memoir of the life and deeds of Hyrcanus already existed as a com- 
plete whole at the time of the composition. (Comp. e. g. Eichhorn, 
p. 247, Bertholdt, p. 1048.) But this passage, (xai ta %oi7ta ?w 
?c6ycov lecdvvov — l§ov 'tavta yeypaTt-tfu srti $i$%iov qfxspZiV dp^tfpiotfw^j 
cw'tov, cuj> ov iysvr^Tj ap%L£p£v$ psta tbv Tiavipa cwtov,) on the contrary, 
shows that the book was composed, although certainly a considerable 
time after the beginning of the reign of Hyrcanus, yet before the 
end of it — otherwise, why should the terminus a quo be expressly 
assigned, and not the terminus ad quern f We must make the more 
use of this indication, because we are compelled by the internal 
complexion of the book to place the time of its composition as early 
as possible. Ancient and modern scholars are agreed that the book, 
as far as regards the native accounts, possesses in a high degree the 
character of trustworthiness and historical fidelity, that it is dis- 
tinguished in particular by an exact and correct chronology. Now, 
how can these marks of excellence, which appear in an especially 
striking light on comparison with the Second Book of the Macca- 
bees, be otherwise explained than on the assumption that the book 
was written at a time comparatively near the incidents depicted in it, 
so that the author could write the truth if he really wished to ? This 
assumption is the more necessary, the more numerous were the fic- 
tions and exaggerations by which the Jewish national pride by de- 
grees disfigured the history of the Maccabees. We can avoid it only 
on the hypothesis that there were older written authorities ; but this 



APPENDIX. 443 

is very improbable, because the author nowhere refers to such 
sources, not even where, as in chap. ix. 23, we might surely expect 
such a reference, the more so as the historical books of the Old Tes- 
tament, which the author is perpetually copying, are accustomed to 
quote their authorities. Besides, in the closing verses of the book 
that are adduced, there seems contained an intimation that beyond 
the period whose history the author described, no written records 
existed. For when the author closes his work with the death of 
Simon, and pronounces the continuation of it unnecessary, because 
the history of Hyrcanus was to be found written elsewhere, it surely 
seems to follow that from the same reason he would not have written 
the earlier history, if there had already existed trustworthy earlier 
records respecting it. 

" 3. The Alexandrine version of Daniel, as appears from the fore- 
going remarks, must have been made before the First Book of the 
Maccabees, and, indeed, probably a considerable time before, since 
the way in which the author makes use of it seems to suppose its 
distribution and reception by the church in Palestine. We have a 
second testimony to its earlier composition in the prologue to Jesus 
Sirach, composed about the year 130 b. c, in which, as De Wette 
also (I.e. p. 75) is inclined to assume, the Greek translation of the 
entire Old Testament is supposed complete. Lastly, an indication 
of the time of composition is perhaps furnished us by the translation 
itself.— In chap. x. 1, it renders the words 1D1H ilK fUl by 
xal to TCkY]Qo$ to itf^upw Bt-avorjO^stactb ^poo^ay/m. By to rChrfi. to Ig%. 
are probably intended the Jews at the time of the Maccabees, as 
those who, according to chap. xii. 9, 10, will receive a full insight 
into the vision which was partially closed up at the time it was 
given. But a very exact definition like this, for which there is not 
the slightest ground in the text, can only be explained by supposing 
the author to have lived in the Maccabean time itself, and observed 
the mighty influence exerted upon it by the prophecies of Daniel. 

" Now, according to these explanations, the Alexandrine version is 
in any case separated by only a very small interval of time from the 
composition of the book itself, if we are to regard it as spurious. 
According to Bleek, (p. 288,) chapters i.-vi. were composed during 
the time that the Jewish worship was abolished by Antiochus 
Epiphanes — very soon after the consecration of the altar of burnt- 
offering for heathen sacrifices ; the prophetic sections probably some- 
what later, after the restoration of the Jewish worship by Judas 
Maccabseus, shortly before or immediately after the death of An- 
tiochus Epiphanes ; the whole, therefore, within the years 167-163, 
B. c. But we should certainly expect that a book whose author and 
translator are quite contemporary, or at most separated by only a 
very small interval of time, would be more correctly translated than 



444 APPENDIX. 

all the other far older books of the Old Testament ; and in like man- 
ner, too, that no traces of variation in the translation would occur, 
which, indeed, in a work only just come to light, are scarcely to be 
conceived. But now, in the present case, the very contrary is found. 
The translation of Daniel is the very worst of all, so bad that the 
ancient church rejected it — a thing that, with their high veneration 
for the LXX., says much — and substituted the translation of Theo- 
dotion ; comp. De Wette, 1. c. p. 76. Gross misunderstandings of 
the original are so frequent on every hand, that it is not worth while 
to quote particular instances, especially as Michaelis has already, 
in his dissertation on this version, [Or. bibl. iv. p. 17, sqq.,) collected 
a sufficient quantity of them. Many times, e. g. x. 8, the translator 
gives mere words, without any sense. Perhaps it will be attempted 
to charge this character of the translation on the Alexandrine origin 
of it. But, for one thing, this origin is very far from proved, since 
it does not follow from the composition of most parts of the LXX. at 
Alexandria, that they were all composed there ; for another, it can- 
not be supposed that, with all the active intercourse between the 
Jews in Palestine and in Egypt, a proof of which would be furnished 
by the speedy transmission and immediate translation of the book, 
the complete understanding of it which the Jews of Palestine must 
have possessed in the time of the Maccabees, should have been with- 
holden so entirely from the Alexandrines ; and, finally, the fact 
that the Alexandrine version was in Palestine also the received one, 
as appears from its being taken as the basis in the First Book of the 
Maccabees and in the New Testament, shows that Daniel was no 
better understood there than in Egypt. Nor is it less true that traces 
are found of variations, although Michaelis, (1. c. p. 34 sqq.,) has 
ascribed much to that source, which can be ascribed only to a para- 
phrastic freedom, or to ignorance of the language, and to mistakes 
on the part of the translator. Comp. e. g. chap. v. 21, (rttojp'z/s iw 
qjAspuv, xai £v8o%os iv y^ps i ; chap. xi. 4, (xau ttspovs StSafsc rav-ra,) 
&c." — Hengstenberg on Daniel, pp. 224-240, Edinburgh, 1848. 



THE PAPACY. 



The strongest expressions I have used in describing the Papacy 
in the Lecture ending at page 245, are justified by the occurrences 
of 1850. 

The head of the Apostasy has taken ecclesiastical possession of 
England — divided it among his creatures— appointed Cardinal Wise- 



APPENDIX. 445 

man as their head, and Archbishop of Westminster. Perhaps the 
most expressive comment on this lecture will be found in the docu- 
ments themselves. 



THE PAPAL BULL. 

Apostolic Letter of His Holiness Pope Pius IX., establishing an 
Episcopal Hierarchy in England. 

"Ad perpetuam rei memoriam." 

" The power of governing the universal church, intrusted by our 
Lord Jesus Christ to the Roman pontiff, in the person of St. Peter, 
Prince of the Apostles, has maintained for centuries in the apostolic 
see the admirable solicitude with which it watches over the welfare 
of the Catholic religion in all the earth, and provides with zeal for 
its progress. Thus has been accomplished the design of its Divine 
founder, who, by establishing a chief, has in his profound wisdom 
insured the safety of the church unto the uttermost time. The effect 
of this solicitude has been felt in most nations, and among these is 
the noble kingdom of England. History proves that since the first 
ages of the church, the Christian religion was carried into Great 
Britain, where it flourished until toward the middle of the fifth cen- 
tury. After the invasion of the Angles and Saxons in that island, 
government, as well as religion, fell into a most deplorable state. At 
once our most holy predecessor, Gregory the Great, sent the monk Au- 
gustine and his followers ; then he created a great number of bishops, 
joined to them a multitude of monks and priests, brought the Anglo- 
Saxons to religion, and succeeded by his influence in re-establishing 
and extending the Catholic faith in all that country, which then began 
to assume the name of England. But, to recall more recent facts, 
nothing seems more evident to us in the history of the Anglican 
schism of the sixteenth century than the solicitude with which the 
Roman pontiffs, our predecessors, succoured and supported, by all 
the means in their power, the Catholic religion, then exposed in that 
kingdom to the greatest dangers, and reduced to the last extremities. 
It is with this object, apart from other means, that so many efforts 
have been made by the sovereign pontiffs, either by their orders or 
with their approbation, to keep in England men ready and devoted 
to the support of Catholicism ; and in order that young Catholics en- 
dowed by nature might be enabled to come on to the continent, there 
to receive an education, and be formed with care in the study of ec- 
clesiastical science, especially in order that, being in sacred orders, 
they may, on their return to their country, be able to support their 



446 APPENDIX. 

countrymen by the ministry of their word and "by the sacraments, 
and that they may defend and propagate the true faith. 

"But the zeal of our predecessors will perhaps be more clearly 
admitted, as regards what they have done to give the Catholics of 
England pastors clothed in an episcopal character at a time when a 
furious and implacable tempest had deprived them of the presence 
of bishops and their pastoral care. First, the apostolic letter of 
Gregory XV., commencing with these words, 'Ecclesia Romana/ and 
dated the 23d of March, 1623, shows that the sovereign pontiff, as 
soon as possible, deputed to the government of English and Scotch 
Catholic bishops, William Bishop, consecrated Bishop of Chalcis, 
with ample faculties and powers. After the death of Bishop, Urban 
VIII. renewed this mission in his apostolic letter, dated January 4, 
1625, addressed to Richard Smith, and conferring on him the bishop- 
ric of Chalcis, and all the powers previously resting on Bishop. It 
seemed subsequently, at the commencement of the reign of James 
II., that more favourable days were about to dawn upon the Catholic 
religion. Innocent XL profited at once by this circumstance, and 
in 1685 he deputed John Leyburn, Bishop of Adrumede, as vicar- 
apostolic for all the kingdom of England. Subsequently, by another 
apostolic letter, dated 30th January, 1688, and commencing as fol- 
lows, ' Super cathedram/ he joined with Leyburn three other vicars- 
apostolic, bishops in partibus, so .that all England, by the care of the 
apostolic nuncio in this country, Ferdinand, Archbishop of Amosia, 
was divided by that pontiff into four districts ; that of London, the 
west, the centre, and the north, which at first were governed by apos- 
tolic vicars furnished with proper faculties and powers. In the ac- 
complishment of so grave a charge, they received rules and succour 
either by the decisions of Benoit XIV., in his Constitution of May 
30, 1753, which commences with the words, 'Apostolicum minis- 
terium/ or by those of other pontiffs, our predecessors, and our Con- 
gregation for the Propagation of the Faith. This division of all 
England into four apostolic vicarages lasted till the time of Gregory 
XVL, who, in his apostolic letter, ' Muneris apostolici/ dated July 
3, 1840, considering the increase of the Catholic religion in England, 
and making a new ecclesiastical division of the country, doubled the 
number of vicarages, and confided the spiritual government of Eng- 
land to the vicars-apostclic in London, of the west, the east, the 
centre, of Lancaster, York, and the north. The little we have just 
said proves clearly that our predecessors applied themselves strongly 
to use all the means their authority gave them to console the Church 
of England for its immense disgraces, and to work for its resurrec- 
tion. Having before our eyes, therefore, the good example of our 
predecessors, and desirous, b\ imitating them, of fulfilling the duties 



APPENDIX. 447 

of the supreme apostolate ; pressed, besides, to follow the movements 
of our heart for that portion of the Lord's vineyard, we proposed to 
ourselves, from the commencement of our pontificate, to pursue a 
work that was so well begun, and to apply ourselves in the most 
serious manner to favour every day the development of the church 
in this kingdom. For this reason, considering as a whole the state 
of Catholicism in England, reflecting on the considerable number of 
Catholics, which keep still increasing, remarking that every day the 
obstacles are falling off which stood in the way of the extension of 
the Catholic religion, we have thought that the time was come when 
the form of ecclesiastical government should be resumed in England, 
such as it exists, freely exists, in other nations, where no particular 
cause necessitates the ministry of vicars-apostolic. "We have thought, 
that by the progress of time and things, it was no longer necessary 
to have the English Catholics governed by vicars-apostolic, but on 
the contrary, that the changes which had already been made neces- 
sitated the ordinary form of episcopal government. 

"We have been confirmed in these thoughts by the desires ex- 
pressed to us by the vicars-apostolic in England, as well as by num- 
bers of the clergy and laity distinguished by virtue and rank, and by 
the wishes of the great majority of English Catholics. In maturing 
this design, we have not failed to implore the aid of the Almighty 
and Most Gracious God, and that he would grant us grace in this 
weighty affair to resolve upon that which should be most suitable to 
augment the prosperity of the church. "We have further besought 
the assistance of the blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and of 
the saints whose virtues have made England illustrious, that they 
would deign to obtain by their intercession with God the happy suc- 
cess of this enterprise. We have since commended the whole busi- 
ness to the grave and serious consideration of our venerable brothers 
the cardinals of the holy Roman Church, forming our Congregation 
for Propagating the Faith. Their sentiments having been found 
completely conformable to our own, we have resolved to sanction 
them, and carry them into execution. It is for this reason, after 
having weighed the whole matter most scrupulously, that of our own 
proper motion, in our certain knowledge, and in the plenitude of our 
apostolic power, we have resolved, and do hereby decree the re- 
establishment in the kingdom of England, and according to the 
common laws of the church, of a hierarchy of bishops, deriving their 
titles from their own sees, which we constitute by the present letter 
in the various apostolic districts. 

" To commence with the district of London, it will form two sees 
— to wit, that of Westminster, which we hereby elevate to be metro- 
politan, of archiepiscopal dignity, and that of Southwark, which we 
assign to it as suffragan, together with those which we proceed to 



448 APPENDIX. 

indicate. The diocese of "Westminster will include that portion of 
the aforesaid district which extends to the banks of the Thames, and 
comprehends the counties of Middlesex, Essex, and Hertford; that 
of Southwark, on the south of the Thames, will include the counties 
of Beds, Southampton, Surrey, Sussex, and Kent, with the Isles of 
Wight, Jersey, Guernsey, and others adjacent. In the northern dis- 
trict there will be but one episcopal see, which will take its name 
from the town of Hagglestown, and have for its circumscription that 
of the existing district. The district of York will also be a diocese, 
whose capital will be the town of Beverley. In the district of Lan- 
cashire there will be two bishops, of whom one, the bishop of Liver- 
pool, will have for his diocese the Isle of Mona, the districts of 
Lonsdale, Amounderness, and West Derby ; and the other, the 
bishop of Salford, will extend his jurisdiction over Salford, Black- 
burn, and Leyland. The county of Chester, though belonging to this 
district, will be united to another diocese. In the district of Wales, 
two archiepiscopal sees will be established, that of Salop and that 
of Merioneth and Newport united. The diocese of Salop will con- 
tain the counties of Anglesea, Caernarvon, Denbigh, Flint, Merioneth, 
and Montgomery, to which we join the county of Chester, detached 
from the district of Lancaster, and that of Salop from the centre. 
To the diocese of the bishop of Merioneth and Newport are assigned 
the counties of Brecknock, Glamorgan, Carmarthen, Pembroke, and 
Radnor, also the English counties of Hereford and Monmouth. In 
the western district we create two sees, Clifton and Plymouth ; the 
first comprehending the counties of Gloucester, Somerset, and Wilts ; 
the second those of Devon, Dorset, and Cornwall. The central dis- 
trict, from which we have detached the county of Salop, will have 
two episcopal sees, Nottingham and Birmingham : to the first we 
assign the counties of Notts, Derby, Leicester, Lincoln, and Rutland; 
to the second the counties of Stafford, Bucks, Oxford and Warwick. 
In the eastern district there will be one see, which will take its name 
from the town of Northampton, and retain the present circumscrip- 
tion of the district, except the counties of Lincoln and Rutland, 
which we have assigned to the diocese of Nottingham. 

"Thus, in the very flourishing kingdom of England there will be 
one single ecclesiastical province, with one archbishop and twelve 
suffragans, whose zeal and pastoral labours will, we hope, by the 
grace of God, bring new and daily increase to the power of Catholi- 
cism. For this reason we reserve to ourselves and successors the 
right to divide this province into several, and to increase the number 
of its bishoprics as new ones may be required, and in general to 
settle their boundaries as it may appear meet before the Lord. 

"Meanwhile, we enjoin the the archbishop and bishops to furnish 
at stated seasons reports of the state of their churches to our Con- 



APPENDIX. 449 

gregation of the Propaganda, and not to omit informing us on all 
points concerning the spiritual good of their flocks. We shall con- 
tinue to avail ourselves of the aid of the Congregation of the Pro- 
paganda in all that concerns the affairs of the church in England. 
But in the sacred government of the clergy and people, and all 
which concerns the pastoral office, the archbishop and bishops of 
England will enjoy all the rights and faculties which bishops and 
archbishops can use, according to the disposition of the sacred 
canons and the apostolic constitutions, and they will likewise be 
equally bound by all the obligations to which other bishops and 
archbishops are held by the common discipline of the Catholic 
Church. 

" Their rights and duties will not be in any case impaired by any 
thing that is at present in vigour, whether originating in the former 
form of the English Church, or in the subsequent missions instituted 
in virtue of special constitutions, privileges, or customs, now that 
the same state of things no longer exists. And in order that no 
doubt may remain, we suppress, in the plentitude of our apostolic 
power, and entirely abrogate all the obligatory and juridical force of 
the said special constitutions, privileges, and customs, however 
ancient their date. The archbishop and bishops of England will 
thus have the integral power to regulate all that belongs to the exe- 
cution of the common law, or which are left to the authority of 
bishops by the general discipline of the church. As for us, most 
assuredly they shall never have to complain that we do not sustain 
them by our apostolical authority, and we shall always be happy to 
second their demands in all which appears calculated to promote the 
glory of God and the good of souls. In decreeing this restoration of 
the ordinary hierarchy of bishops in England, and the enjoyment 
of the common law of the church, we have had principally in view 
the prosperity and increase of the Catholic religion in the kingdom 
of England ; but we have also desired to gratify the wishes of so 
many of our reverend brethren governing in England, under the 
style of vicars-apostolic, and also of a great number of our dear 
children of the Catholic clergy and people. Many of their ancestors 
presented the same prayer to our predecessors, who had begun to 
send vicars-apostolic to England, where no Catholic bishop could 
exercise <fche common ecclesiastical law in his own church, and who 
afterward multiplied the number of vicars-apostolic, and of districts, 
not because religion was submitted in this country to one exceptional 
rule, but rather because they would prepare the foundation for the 
future rebuilding of the ordinary hierarchy. 

" This is why we, to whom it has been given by the grace of God 
to accomplish this great work, declare here that it is not in any 
manner in our thoughts or intentions that the bishops of England, 

38* 



450 APPENDIX. 

provided with the name and rights of ordinary bishops, should be 
destitute of any advantages, of whatever nature they may be, which 
they formerly enjoyed under the title of vicars-apostolic. It would 
be contrary to reason to allow any act of ours performed at the 
earnest prayer of the English Catholics, and for the benefit of re- 
ligion, to turn to their damage. Rather we cherish the firm hope 
that our dear children in Christ, whose alms and largesses have never 
been wanting to sustain in England religion, and the prelates who 
govern there as vicars, will exercise a still larger liberality to the 
bishops who are now attached by permanent bonds to the English 
church, in order that they may not be deprived of temporal aid, 
which they will require to ornament their temples and adorn the 
divine service, to support the clergy and the poor, and for other 
ecclesiastical services. Finally, lifting the eyes to the almighty and 
gracious God, from whom comes our help, we supplicate him with 
all instance, obsecration, and action of grace, to confirm by divine 
grace all that we have decreed for the good of the church, and to 
give of his grace to those whose it is to execute these decrees, that 
they may feed the flock of God committed to their care, and that 
their zeal may be applied to spread the glory of his name. And, in 
order to obtain the most abundant succour of celestial grace, we 
finally invoke, as intercessors with God, the holy Mother of God, the 
blessed apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, with the blessed patrons of 
England, and especially St. Gregory the Great, in order that the 
solicitude we have displayed, notwithstanding the insufficiency of our 
merit, to restore the episcopal sees of England, which he founded in 
his' days with so much advantage to the church, may likewise re- 
dound to the good of the Catholic Church. We decree that this 
apostolic letter shall never he taxed with subreptice or obreptice, nor 
be protested for default either of intention or any defect whatever, 
but always be made valid and firm, and hold good to all intents and 
purposes, notwithstanding the general apostolic edicts which have 
emanated from synodal, provincial, or universal councils, the special 
sanctions as well as the rights of former sees in England, missions 
apostolic, vicarages constituted in the progress of time — notwith- 
standing, in one word, all things contrary whatsoever. We likewise 
decree that all which may be done to the contrary by any one, who- 
ever he may be, knowing or ignorant, in the name of any authority 
whatever, shall be without force. We decree that copies of this 
letter, signed by a notary-public, and sealed with the seal of an 
ecclesiastic, shall be everywhere received as the expression of our 
will. 

"Given at St. Peter's, at Rome, under the seal of the fisherman, 
the 24th of September, 1850, and in the fifth year of our pontificate. 

" Cardinal Lambruschini." 



APPENDIX. 451 

Cardinal Wiseman next issues the following pastoral letter, which 
was read in all the Komish churches : — 

THE RESTORATION OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC HIERARCHY. 

" Nicholas, by the divine mercy of the holy Koman Church, by 
the title of St. Pudentiana, Cardinal Priest, Archbishop of West- 
minster, and Administrator Apostolic of the Diocese of Southwark, 
to the clergy, secular and regular, and the faithful of the said arch- 
diocese and diocese. 

" The great work (it says) is complete ; what you have long de- 
sired and prayed for is granted. Your beloved country has received 
a place among the fair churches which, normally constituted, form 
the splendid aggregate of Catholic communion ; Catholic England 
has been restored to its orbit in the ecclesiastical firmament, from 
which its light had long vanished, and begins now anew its course 
of regularly adjusted action round the centre of unity, the source of 
jurisdiction, of light, and of vigour. Plow wonderfully all this has 
been brought about — how clearly the hand of God has been shown in 
every step, we have net now leisure to relate ; but we may hope soon 
to recount to you by word of mouth. In the mean time we will con- 
tent ourselves with assuring you that, if the concordant voice of those 
venerable and most eminent counsellors to whom the Holy See 
commits the regulation of ecclesiastical affairs in missionary coun- 
tries, if the overruling of every variety of interest and designs, to 
the rendering of this measure almost necessary, if the earnest prayers 
of our Holy Pontiff and his most sacred oblation of the divine 
sacrifice, added to his own deep and earnest reflection, can form to 
the Catholic heart an earnest of heavenly direction, an assurance that 
the Spirit of truth, who guides the church, has here inspired its su- 
preme head, we cannot desire stronger or more consoling evidence 
that this most important measure is from God, has his sanction and 
blessing, and will consequently prosper." 



Dr. Ullathorne, bishop of Birmingham, was enthroned on Sunday 
last: Father Newman, one of the seceders from the Protestant 
Church, preached the sermon on the occasion, in the course of which 
he said — "The mystery of God's Providence is now fulfilled, and 
though he did not recollect any people on earth but those of Great 
Britain, who having once rejected the religion of God, were again re- 
stored to the bosom of the church, God had done it for them. It was 
wonderful in their eyes. The holy hierarchy had been restored. 
The grave was opened, and Christ was coming out !" 



452 APPENDIX. 

The Bishop of London, -whose sympathy with the bishop of 
Exeter's views of baptism is so much to be regretted and deplored, 
seems recalled to his earliest and best conviction by this invasion, 
and thus writes in reply to a memorial from the Westminster 

Clergy : — 

"Fulham, October 28, 1850. 

" Reverend and dear Brethren, — The sentiments expressed in the 
address which you have presented to me are in entire accordance 
with mine, and I am persuaded that they will be responded to by the 
unanimous feeling of Protestant England. 

" The recent assumption of authority by the Bishop of Rome, in 
pretending to parcel out this country into new dioceses, and to 
appoint archbishops and bishops to preside over them, without the 
consent of the Sovereign, is a schismatical act without precedent, and 
one which would not be tolerated by the government of any Roman 
Catholic kingdom. I trust that it will not be quietly submitted to by 
our own. 

" Hitherto, from the time of the Reformation, the pope has been 
contented with providing for the spiritual superitendence of his ad- 
herents in this country, by the appointment of vicars-apostolic — 
bishops who took their titles as such, not from any real or pretended 
sees in England, but from some imaginary dioceses in partibus 
infidelium. In this there was no assumption of spiritual authority 
over a r other of the subjects of the English Crown than those of 
his o^ -mmunion. But the appointment of bishops to preside over 
new t jses in England, constituted by a Papal brief, is virtually a 
der^ the legitimate authority of the British Sovereign and the 

Er episcopate ; a denial also of the validity of our orders, and 

a- don of spiritual jurisdiction over the whole Christian people 

o r 'aim. 

t it is regarded in this light by the pope's adherents in this 
is apparent from the language in which they felicitate them- 
upon this arrogant attempt to stretch his authority beyond its 
limits. A journal which is generally believed to express the 
•ents of a large portion of them at least, (not, I believe, of all,) 
out, in the following words, the difference between the vicars- 
;ic and the pretended diocesan bishops. Alluding to certain 
^rs of our church, who are accused of a leaning toward Rome,. 
s — 'In this act of Pope Pius IX. they have that open declara- 
tor which they have been so long professing to look. Rome, 
they, has never yet formally spoken against us. Her bishops, 
^ed, are sent here, not as having any local authority, but as pas- 
o without flocks ; bishops of Tadmor in the Desert, or of the ruins 
Babylon, intruding into territories which they cannot formally 
dm as their own. This specious argument is once for all silenced. 



APPENDIX. 453 

Rome has more than spoken — she has spoken and acted. She has 
again divided our land into dioceses, and has placed over each a 
pastor, to whom all baptized persons, without exception, within that 
district, are openly commanded to submit themselves in all eccle- 
siastical matters under pain of damnation ; and the Anglican sees, 
those ghosts of realities long passed away, are utterly ignored.' 

" The advisers of the pope have skilfully contrived so to shape 
this encroachment upon the rights and honour of the Crown and 
Church of England, that his nominees to imaginary dioceses will not 
actually offend against the letter of the law by assuming the titles 
which he has pretended to confer upon them ; but that it is contrary 
to the spirit of the law there can be no doubt. As little doubt can 
there be that it is intended as an insult to the sovereign and the 
church of this country. 

" With respect to the conduct proper to be pursued by you on this 
occasion, it ought, in my opinion, to be temperate and charitable, 
but firm and uncompromising. 

" You will do well to call the attention of your people to the real 
purport of this open assault upon our reformed church ; and to take 
measures for petitioning the Legislature to carry out the principle of 
the statute which forbids all persons, other than the persons autho- 
rized by law, to assume or use the name, style, or title of any arch- 
bishop of any province, bishop of any bishopric, or dean of any 
deanery in England or Ireland, by extending the prohibition to any 
pretended diocese or deaneries in these realms. 

" It is possible that such prohibitions might not have the effect of 
preventing the assumption of titles by the Papal bishops, when deal- 
ing with their own adherents : but it would make the assumption 
unlawful, and it would mark the determination of the people of this 
country not to permit any foreign prelate to exercise spiritual juris 
diction over them. 

"But there are other duties besides those of protesting and peti- 
tioning, the performance of which seems to be specially required of 
us by the present emergency. Unwilling as I am to encourage con- 
troversial preaching, I must say that we are driven to have recourse 
to it by this attempted usurpation of authority on the part of the 
bishop of Rome, and by the activity and subtlety of his emissaries 
in all parts of the kingdom. We are surely called upon fo? a more 
than ordinary measure of watchfulness and diligence in fulfilling the 
promise which we gave when we were admitted to the priesthood, ' to 
, Danish and drive away all erroneus and strange doctrimes contrary 
to God's word.' 

"Let us be careful, as well in our public ministrations as in our 
private monitions and exhortations, to refrain from doing or saying 
any thing which may seem to indicate a wish to make the slightest 



454 APPENDIX. 

approach to a church which, far from manifesting a desire to lay 
aside any of the errors and superstitions which compelled us to 
separate from it, is now reasserting them with a degree of boldness 
unknown since the Reformation ; is adding new credenda to its 
articles of faith, and is undisguisedly teaching its members the 
duty of worshipping the creature with the worship due only to the 
Creator. 

" After all, I am much inclined to believe that in having recourse 
to the extreme measure which has called forth your address, the 
Court of Rome has been ill-advised as regards the extension of its 
influence in this country, and that it has taken a false step. That 
step will, I am convinced, tend to strengthen the Protestant feeling 
of the people at large, and will cause some persons to hesitate and 
draw back who are disposed to make concessions to Rome, under a 
mistaken impression that she has abated somewhat of her ancient 
pretensions, and that a union of 'the two churches might possibly be 
effected without the sacrificing of any fundamental principle. Hardly 
any thing could more effectually dispel that illusion than the recent 
proceeding of the Roman Pontiff. He virtually condemns and ex- 
communicates the whole English Church, sovereign, bishops, clergy, 
and laity, and shuts the door against every scheme of compre- 
hension save that which should take for its basis an entire and un- 
conditional submission to the spiritual authority of the Bishop of Rome. 

" That it may please the Divine Head of the church, who is the 
true centre of unity and the only Infallible Judge, to guide and 
strengthen us in these days of rebuke and trial, to open our eyes to 
the dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions, and to unite us in 
one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity, is the earnest 
prayer, 

" Reverend and dear Brethren, 

" Of your affectionate friend and Bishop, 

(Signed) "C.J.LONDON. 

" To the Rev. the Clergy of the City, and 
Liberties of Westminster." 



Without making any remarks on the measure of 1829, that altered 
so materially the position of Roman Catholics in England, it is not 
uninteresting to recall to recollection the words of Lord Eldon, ad- 
dressed to the House of Lords on that occasion. 

" I know that sooner or later this bill will overturn the aristocracy 
and the monarchy. What I have stated is my notion of the danger 
to the establishment. Have they not Roman Catholic archbishops 



APPENDIX. 455 

for every Protestant archbishop ? Roman Catholic deans for every 
Protestant dean ? Did not the Roman Catholic ecclesiastics dispute 
against Henry VIII. in defence of the power of the pope ? And, in 
Mary's time, were not the laws affecting the Roman Catholics re- 
pealed, not by the authority of Parliament, but through the influence 
of the legate of the pope ? And, even though you suppress these 
Roman Catholics who utter those seditious, treasonable, abominable, 
and detestable speeches, others will arise who will utter speeches 
more treasonable, more abominable, and more detestable. No sincere 
Roman Catholic could, or did look for less than a Roman Catholic 
king, and a Roman Catholic Parliament. Their lordships might 
flatter themselves that the dangers he had anticipated were visionary, 
and God forbid that he should say that those who voted for the third 
reading of the bill will not have done so, conscientiously believing 
that no danger exists, or can be apprehended from it. But, in so 
voting, they had not that knowledge of the danger in which they 
were placing the great, the paramount interests of this Protestant 
state ; they had not that knowledge of its true interests and situation 
which they ought to have. Those with whom we are dealing are 
too wary to apprize you, by any indiscreet conduct, of the danger to 
which you are exposed. When (said the noble earl, in a tone 
peculiarly solemn and impressive) — when those dangers shall have 
arrived, I shall have been consigned to the urn, the sepulchre, and 
mortality ; but that they will arrive, I have no more doubt than that 
I yet continue to exist. You hear the words of a man who will soon 
be called to his great account. God forbid, therefore, that I should 
raise my warning voice did I not deem this measure a breach of 
every notion that I have of a civil contract — a breach of every article 
of the constitution, and contrary to the spirit of those oaths which I 
have taken to my king and to that constitution. Pardon, my lords, 
a man far advanced in years, who is willing to give up his existence 
to avert the dangers with which all he loves, all he reveres, are 
threatened. I solemnly declare that I had rather not be living to- 
morrow morning, than, on awaking, find that I had consented to thi3 
measure. Believing it as I do, after all the consideration which I have 
given it, to be an abrogation of all those laws which I deem to be 
necessary to the safety of the church — a violation of those laws which I 
hold to be as necessary to the preservation of the throne as of the 
church, and as indispensable to the existence of the lords and commons 
of this realm as to that of the king and of our holy religion ; — feeling 
all this, I repeat that I would rather cease to exist, than upon awak- 
ing to-morrow morning, find that I had consented to a measure fraught 
with evils so imminent and so deadly, and of which, had I not solemnly 
expressed this my humble but firm conviction, I should have been act- 
ing the part of a traitor to my country, my sovereign, and my God." 



456 APPENDIX. 

LORD JOHN RUSSELL'S LETTER 

One of the redeeming signs of the times is the following noble 
letter from the prime-minister of England. It is as much the ex- 
ponent of his own feelings, I doubt not, as it is the evidence of the 
depth and strength of the current of indignation that has set in 
against the daring intrusion of the ''Little Horn." 

In all probability the steps taken by Pius IX., so much in advance 
of our expectations, will hasten his approaching ruin. 

" Quern Deus vult perdere prius dementat," seems an axiom sin- 
gularly applicable here. 

The Papal invasion is worth having, for the sake of the hidden 
Protestantism it has manifested, and the dormant feeling which it has 
awakened. 

"TO THE RIGHT REV. THE BISHOP OF DURHAM. 

"My dear Lord, — I agree with you in considering 'the late ag- 
gression of the pope upon our Protestantism' as ' insolent and 
insidious/ and I therefore feel as indignant as you can do upon the 
subject. 

" I not only promoted to the utmost of my power the claims of the 
Roman Catholics to all civil rights, but I thought it right, and even 
desirable, that the ecclesiastical system of the Roman Catholics 
should be the means of giving instruction to the numerous Irish 
immigrants in London and elsewhere, who without such help would 
have been left in heathen ignorance. 

"This might have been done, however, without any such innova- 
tion as that which we have now seen. 

" It is impossible to confound the recent measures of the pope 
with the division of Scotland into dioceses by the Episcopal Church, 
or the arrangement of districts in England by the Wesleyan Con- 
ference. 

" There is an assumption of power in all the documents which have 
come from Rome — a pretension to supremacy over the realm of Eng- 
land, and a claim to sole and undivided sway, which is inconsistent 
with the queen's supremacy, with the rights of our bishops and 
clergy, and with the spiritual independence of the nation, as asserted 
even in Roman Catholic times. 

"I confess, however, that my alarm is not equal to my indigna- 
tion. 

"Even if it shall appear that the ministers and servants of the 
pope in this country have not transgressed the law, I feel persuaded 
that we are strong enough to repel any outward attacks. The 
liberty of Protestantism has been enjoyed too long in England to 
allow of any successful attempt to impose a foreign yoke upon our 



APPENDIX. 457 

minds and consciences. No foreign prince or potentate will be per- 
mitted to fasten his fetters upon a nation which has so long and so 
nobly vindicated its right to freedom of opinion, civil, political, and 
religious. 

"Upon this subject, then, I will only say that the present state of 
the law shall be carefully examined, and the propriety of adopting 
any proceedings with reference to the present assumptions of power 
deliberately considered. 

" There is a danger, however, which alarms me much more than 
any aggression of a foreign sovereign. 

"Clergymen of our own church, who have subscribed the Thirty- 
nine Articles, and acknowledged in explicit terms the queen's su- 
premacy, have been the most forward in leading their flocks, ' step 
by step, to the very verge of the precipice/ The honour paid to 
saints, the claim of infallibility for the church, the superstitious use 
of the sign of the cross, the muttering of the Liturgy so as to dis- 
guise the language in which it is written, the recommendation of 
auricular confession, and the administration of penance and absolu- 
tion — all these things are pointed out by clergymen of the Church 
of England as worthy of adoption, and are now openly reprehended 
by the Bishop of London in his Charge to the clergy of his diocese. 

"What, then, is the danger to be apprehended from a foreign 
prince of no great power, compared to the danger within the gates 
from the unworthy sons of the Church of England herself? 

" I have little hope that the propounders and framers of these 
innovations will desist from their insidious course. But I rely with 
confidence on the people of England; and I will not bate a jot of 
heart or hope, so long as the glorious principles and the immortal 
martyrs of the Reformation shall be held in reverence by the great 
mass of a nation which looks with contempt on the mummeries of 
superstition, and with scorn at the laborious endeavours which are 
now making to confine the intellect and enslave the soul. 

" I remain, with great respect, &c. 

"J. Russell. 
" Downing street, Nov. 4." 

39 



INDEX. 



Absolution, in ancient offices, simply 
a prayer, not a judicial act, 398. 

Accidental, nothing is, 81. 

Allusions, scriptural, instances, of, 395. 

Ancient of days, who? 241; described 
by Daniel, 242 ; described by John, 
242 ; conies before the Millennium, 
246 ; what follows revelation of, 
246. 

Ancient prophecy echoed by our Sa- 
viour, 417. 

Apostles refer to Book of Daniel, 22 ; 
they all believed the Book of Daniel 
inspired, 23. 

Artaxerxes, third edict given by, in the 
seventh year of his reign, 387. 

Atonement, objections to, 329 ; nature 
of 344 ; considered, 353 ; joyful news, 
358 ; faith in, makes happy and safe, 
359 ; we need none but Christ's to 
be delivered from sin, 367. 

Austria smitten second by the stone, 
103. 

Authenticity of Book of Daniel, 25. 



B 



Babylon, apostasy of the earth, to be 
destroyed by Christ's kingdom, 114. 

Babylon, description of, by Jeremiah, 
chap, xxvii. 5-8, 61 ; Bible predic- 
tions against, 61 ; description of 
siege of, 65 ; modern travellers de- 
scribe complete ruin of, 67; its pow- 
er, duration of, 68 ; type of destruc- 
tion of, described in the Apocalypse, 
68. 

Babylon, the king of, his likes and dis- 
likes, 33 ; like the world, 33 ; his 



wishes, 33 ; his reason for changing 
the names of the Hebrew youths, 34; 
his endeavours to convert the three 
Hebrew youths, 34. 

Baptism, not surely and always rege- 
neration, 112. 

Beast, wild, a symbol of a nation with- 
out the gospel of Jesus, 226. 

Belly and thighs of brass, the Crasco- 
Macedonian, or third universal king- 
dom, 101. 

Belshazzar, festival of, women present 
at, 25; feast of, 166; not necessa- 
rily sinful, 166; the sin that charac- 
terized it, 167; its accompaniments, 
170. 

Bible, the truth of, nothing insignifi- 
cant which establishes it, 26 ; change 
in all, except, 84 ; reasons for cleav- 
ing to it, 235 ; should be possessed in 
our hearts, 236 ; the secret of a coun- 
try's safety, 364. 

Body, the, kings may control, 122. 

Breast and arms of silver, the Medo- 
Persian, or second universal king- 
dom, 101. 

Business, adopt that which requires no 
sacrifice of principle, 53. 



Ceremonies and forms evanescent, 105. 

Channing, Dr., remarks on his creed, 
343. 

Charlemagne, 56. 

Children, hearts of, tender, 31 ; undu- 
tiful, one reason why they are so, 
54; should be accustomed to self- 
sacrifice, 218; should be taught to 
pray, 218 ; should have heart as well 
as head education, 219. 

459 



460 



INDEX. 



Chrism, meaning of, 373. 

Christ, the stone cut out without hands, 
92 ; his kingdom is secondly a king- 
dom of persons, 112; coming of, 
description of, 244; comes with the 
speed of lightning, 245; his death 
expiatory, 328 ; voluntary, 329 ; ac- 
companiments of, peculiar, 330 ; ac- 
companied by miracles, 331 ; leading 
descriptions of, 332 ; appellatives of, 
332 ; commercial appellatives of, 335; 
sacrificial appellatives of, 336; na- 
ture of, objective and occasional, 338; 
nature of, remote relation or final 
decision, 340 ; nature of, expi-essive 
of divine action, 342; his mission, 
one end of it to seal up the vision 
and prophecy, 371 ; the Holy One 
of God, 372 ; anointing of, what is 
meant by, 372 ; is the Key to unlock 
the Psalms, 374 ; cut off in the midst 
of the last seventy weeks, 390; his 
preaching eminently popular, 390 ; 
the true Melchisedec, the King of 
righteousness, 397 ; every action and 
word of, bear the stamp and super- 
scription of Messiah the Prince, 397; 
to add to his laws is treason, 397; 
his law, and law of Cassar, come 
sometimes into collision, 397; as 
King, bestows forgiveness, 398; can 
alone absolve, 398; as King, sends 
forth ministers of the gospel, 399 ; 
the King, gives the Holy Spirit, 400; 
in his kingly office, will decide at 
the judgment-day, 400; his kingly 
office in transferable, 402 ; Prince of 
Peace, 403 ; his kingdom, the en- 
trance into it, 406; his kingdom, 
comes quietly, 406. 

Christian, a, does not live to himself, 
209. 

Chi'istians, real, need not to be con- 
vinced of inspiration of Daniel, 23 ; 
many like Naanian, 43. 

Christianity, inward, the church's 
strength, 106. 

Christmas, Christ not born on, but be- 
fore it, 389. 

Church government, not the main 
thing, 52. 

Church of God, captive in Babylon, 
58. 

Church of Rome, constructed on the 
ruins of the Roman empire, 77; what 
she depends on for her power, 121; 



secures the homage of all the senses, 
121. 

Church, the, Christ has been with from 
the beginning of the world, 132; de- 
scription of, 132; Tekel applied to, 
191; a Christian, when, 203. 

Coming of Christ, passages which an- 
nounce it, 241. 

Commands of God, never hesitate to 
comply with, 130. 

Condemnation, the greatest, a neg- 
lected gospel, a rejected Saviour, 
375. 

Conduct, a Christian's, estimated by the 
world, 194. 

Confession, two sorts, 303; true, is full 
and explicit, 303 ; of Daniel, specific, 
304 ; of sins, must be to God himself, 
305. 

Congregations, all should have schools, 
39. 

Conscience, sin in the, awful power of, 
210. 

Corruption, the greatest when it is 
the corruption of that which is pure, 
119. 

Covenant, one only confirmed by Christ, 
the New Covenant predicted in Jer. 
xxxi. 31, 390; Heb. x. 15-18, 390; 
the New Testament dispensation, 
390. 

Crucifix, the true, 237. 



Daniel, exposition of, 19; figures of, 
20; Jews' objections to Book of, 20; 
the author of Book of, 20 ; the au- 
thor, evidence of, 20 ; contemporary 
of Ezekiel, 21 ; the Book of, receiv- 
ed by the Jews as authentic, 21 ; the 
Book of, translated by- Alexandrian 
Jews, 21 ; the Book of, in Septua- 
gint, 21 ; the Book of, written partly 
in Chaldee, 21; New Testament, al- 
lusions to, 22 ; allusion to, in 2 Thess. 
iii. 22; the Book of, alluded to in 
Heb. xi. 33, 23 ; Book of, its distinc- 
tive features, 26 ; Book of, great ob- 
ject of it to depress all that is human 
and exalt all that is divine, 27; pro- 
phecy of, partly fulfilled, 27; the 
Book of, a duty to study, 28 ; very 
young when made a captive, 29 ; 



INDEX. 



461 



called a child, 29 j his reason for 
refusing to eat and drink the king's 
moat and wine, 30 ; reason of his 
firmness, 30 ; had a religious edu- 
cation, 30; education of, under God, 
the means of his preservation, 30; 
of noble birth, 31; a scholar, 31; 
skilled in all the learning of his 
times, 32 ; a Hebrew, 32 ; his ac- 
quaintance with all branches of 
knowledge, 33 ; not like many mo- 
dern Christians, 36 ; his adherence 
to truth at all times, 36; invitation 
to study him, 36 ; date of the writ- 
ing of, proved, 39 ; remark about, 
39 ; sought duty rather than smile 
of kings, 42; his conduct teaches a 
lesson, 42 ; faithfulness of, gives a 
tone to his whole life, 44; trusted in 
goodness of his cause, 47; his gen- 
tleness and courtesy, 47; not a loser 
by adherence to principle, 48; ex- 
plains the vision of the king, 58 ; 
explains what the image represent- 
ed, 58 ; the reason why he consented 
to be the head of the astrologers, 
175 ; reason why he prayed at an 
open window, 203 ; prayer sustained 
the inner life of, 204; his nearness 
to God, in private that made him 
consistent in public, 204; his life in- 
strumental, in God's hand, in con- 
version of Darius, 208 ; educated in 
the gospel, 217; self-sacrifice a result 
of his education, 217; a sketch of, 
by an ancient writer, 221; intensity 
of his prayer, 315 ; the time he 
prayed, 323 ; his religion and ours 
the same, 420. 

Darius, his decree, 215; edict of, se- 
cond period, recorded in Ezra vi., 
382. 

Death not a natural thing, 207; the 
Christian victorious over, 207 ; only 
the removal to life in the case of a 
Christian, 207. 

Deity, pictures of, objectionable, 242. 

Dream of Nebuchadnezzar, 135. 

Dreams, conclusions to be come to re- 
specting them, 69. 

Duties of to-day best preparation for 
to-morrow's trials, 50. 

Duty not a thing of longitude and lati- 
tude, 41 ; the same everywhere, 41 ; 
manner in which Daniel discharged 
his, 201. 

39 



E 



Early martyrs, Shadrach, Meshach, 
and Abed-nego, 117. 

Earthly grandeur treated in Scripture 
as fading grass, 76; minds, charac- 
teristics of, 188. 

Edict, fourth, given to Nehemiah in 
the 20th year of Artaxerxes, 386. 

Education, Christian, a blessing, 39. 

Elliot, Mr., his belief drawn from Scrip- 
ture, 104. 

Empire of head of gold, 61; of Cyrus 
described by Xenophon and Hero- 
dotus, 74; silver, overthrown by 
Alexander, 75 ; Roman, much said 
of it by Daniel, 76 ; fourth univer- 
sal, further proved by Gibbon, 78; 
the iron, 87. 

Empires, the four, their names, 59 ; 
Medo-Persian and Grasco-Macedo- 
nian, 72 ; four universal only, 101. 

Eucharist not a fast but a feast, 360. 

Events often turning-points in one's 
character, 43. 

Evidence conclusive that Jesus is the 
Messiah, 377. 



Facts recorded in the Bible are attest- 
ed by heathen historians, 120 ; tend- 
ing to prove that the heavens do 
rule, 161; a repetition of, before 
stated, 223. 

Faith not our Saviour, 360. 

False religion only a corruption of the 
true, 119. 

Fasting considered, 271 ; true, the na- 
ture of, 274; the end of, 275; to be 
observed in the spirit and not in the 
letter, 277; advocated by Jerome, 
280. 

Feast of Belshazzar, not necessarily 
sinful, 166 ; the sin that character- 
ized it, 167. 

France smitten by the stone, 103. 



Gates frequently referred to in the Bi- 
ble, 118. 
Gentile law of God's worship, 201. 



462 



INDEX. 



Germany smitten third by the stone, 
103. 

Gibbon, his description of Koran, 250. 

God our only refuge in trouble, 96; 
he rules, and in this fact he designs 
good to us and glory to himself, 158; 
he reigns, evidences that, 167: weighs 
all motives and men, 180 ; never for- 
sakes his people till they forsake him, 
442. 

God's people, their frequent expe- 
rience, 59 ; word more powerful than 
princes, 67 ; doings to be viewed 
in connection with another world, 
160. 

Gold, fall of the head of, 65 ; head of, 
the Babylonian or first universal 
kingdom, 101. 

Good, all things work for, 217. 

Gospel, the character of, 108. 

Grace, pray for, 206. 

Grandeur, earthly, described in Scrip- 
ture as fading grass, 75. 



Heathens note a purer life sooner than 
a pure creed, 196. 

Heaven, we must be fitted for it by the 
Holy Spirit, 367. 

Hebrew youths, circumstances of, 39 ; 
the beautiful answer of, to Nebu- 
chadnezzar, 12-4; felt duty to God 
greater than loyalty to an earthly 
king, 129; their faith in God's pro- 
mises, 131. 

Herodotus, Babylon described by, 61 ; 
describes siege of Babylon, 66; de- 
scribes empire of Cyrus, 74. 

Hesitation wrong in matters of reli- 
gion, 132. 

High-Priest, Jesus is the, of his church, 
395. 

History, the echo of truth in the pro- 
phecies of God, 56; unconscious 
echo of God's prophecy, 79. 

History and historians attest the truth 
of God's word, 421. 

Hooker, a passage from, 221. 

Horn, little, 225 ; the Papal power now 
reigning at Rome, 227; prophecy of, 
fulfilled, 228 ; another feature to 
identify it with Papal power, 230; 
wasting away of, 238; what meant 



by, 254; rise and progress of, 257; 
when did it begin to fail ? 262. 

Horns, three, the three states of the 
church, 103. 

Houses, in taking them prefer those 
which are nearest to a gospel mi- 
nistry, 52. 

Howell's, Mr., a saying of, 107. 



Image, the mystic stone, smiting the, 
86 ; ten toes of ten kingdoms, 102. 

India, use of secular education in, 32. 

Isaiah and Daniel, of a royal tribe, 
31. 

Islamism adverse to Christianity, 262. 

Italy, smitten fourth by the stone, 103. 



Jerome advocated fasting and monke- 
ry, 280. 

Jerusalem, Daniel's prayer for, appro- 
priate to present times, 313; com- 
mand to rebuild it, the commencing 
period of the seventy weeks, 379; 
its destruction, 409 ; temple of, only 
possible remains, a stone, 410; what 
Christ says in predicting its ruin, 
410 ; God's anger to it has a limit, 
415. 

Jesus Christ, refers to Book of Daniel, 
22 ; his greatness in minute affairs 
of this life, 45 ; his faithfulness in 
great as well as in little things, 45 ; 
works of, contrasted with those of 
Mohammed, 261 : grand characteris- 
tics of death of, 376 ; results of death 
of, embodied in Dan. ix. 24, 376; the 
Messiah, irresistible evidence that he 
is, 393; the object and hope of all 
true believers, 395. 

Jews, their objections to Book of Da- 
niel, 20 ; the gathering to their own 
land, 114; reason why they always 
looked to Jerusalem when they 
prayed, 203; law of their worship, 
204. 

Josephus asserts authenticity of Da- 
niel, 46 ; his comments on Daniel, 
49 ; some account of, 49 ; like our 
modern philosophers, 49 ; a fact re- 
lated by, 212. 

Judgment-day, description of, 400. 



INDEX. 



463 



K 



Kingdom, fourth, strong as iron, 73. 

Kingdom, Christ's first, is a kingdom 
of principles, 105. 

Kingdom of God, main elements of, 
107. 

Kingdom of Christ, external charac- 
teristics of, 112 ; a catholic kingdom, 
113 ; united kingdom, 113 ; a holy- 
kingdom, 113 ; to destroy all other 
kingdoms, and cover the earth, 114; 
comes speedily, 115 ; saints only will 
occupy, 247; description of, 247. 

Kingdoms, universal, four, 55. 

Kingdoms, part of, now severed from 
the pope, 103. 

Kings should be prayed for, that they 
may have grace not to set up any 
idols, 120. 

Knowledge, secular, not to he discou- 
raged, 50. 

Koran, Gibbon's description of, 259. 



Law, by deeds of, none can be justified, 

184. 
Layard, his disclosures, 60. 
Learning, man's, a great aid in proving 

the inspiration of the Bible, 26. 
Lessons, practical, 233. 
Living religion, the great defence 

against Puseyism and Popery, 236. 



M 



Malachi prophesies the downfall of the 

Jews, 412. 
Man, prayerless, is graceless, 205. 
Marshal Massena, anecdote of, 200. 
Martyrs, when required, receive from 

God a martyr's spirit, 124. 
Men, all weighed by God, 181 ; their 

affairs God rules, 420. 
Messiah, important offices of, 395. 
Messiahship, pretenders to, no disproof 

of claims of Jesus, 378. 
Millennium, description of, 247. 
Milton, a passage from, 231. 
Minister, a, has no power to absolve 

from sin, 399 ; none true but those 

commissioned by Jesus, 399. 



Mohammed, his mission, Gibbon testi- 
fies to, 261; a finished hypocrite, 
262. 

Monkery opposed by Vigilantius, 280. 

Moses predicted the downfall of the 
Jews, 412. 

Mother, a, her lessons, 39. 

Motives, all weighed by God, 180. 

Music,Nebuchadnezzar knew the charm 
of, 121. 



N 



Name, Christian, a beautiful thing, 40. 

Napoleon, 56. 

Nation, a, its duties, 190. 

Nation, Jewish, great end and purpose 
of, 392. 

Nations, Tekel may be applied to, 190. 

Nebuchadnezzar tried an artful plan 
to convert the three Hebrew youths, 
40, 41 ; his conduct quite Popish, 
118 ; the image that appeared to, 
120 ; his dream and the interpreta- 
tion, 135 ; the epistle of, pervaded by 
missionary feeling, 137; his dream 
expatiated on, 138; his experience 
teaches the blessings of affliction, 
143. 

Newton, Sir Isaac, on Daniel, 19. 

Newton, Bishop, 19. 

Newton, John, remark about, 39. 

Nineveh, its destruction, 60. 



Offering and oblation ceased six months 
before and eighteen months after 
Christ's death, 392. 

Oratorios, remarks on, 169. 



Palestine, present state of, fulfils the 
prediction, 413 ; Chateaubriand de- 
picts present state of, 414. 

Parents spoken to, 51. 

Pastor, his office not kingly, 402. 

Peace, the consequence of justifica- 
tion by faith, 107; Christianity gives 
perfect, 201; confidence in God gives 
perfect, 201; the Christian enjoys 
even in suffering, 207; true way 



464 



INDEX. 



to have it, 403; none to the wicked, 
404 

Pentecost, the evidence of Christ's 
kingly office, 400. 

People of God, characteristics of, 18S ; 
a suffering people, 20V. 

Peter believed Book of Daniel inspired, 
22. 

Popery more corrupt than heathenism, 
119. 

Porphyry, his opinion of Daniel, 27. 

Porte, or gate, Turkey the only country 
now using the word, 118. 

Prayer, the only resource in trial, 57; 
God answers, 57; necessity of, 106; 
with or without a liturgy, does not 
necessarily constitute a person a 
subject of the true kingdom, 112; a 
privilege as well as a duty, 204; 
efficacy of, 269 ; the age of, still lasts, 
270; importance of, cannot be over- 
rated, 283; hymn on, 283; the end 
of, 284; works no change in God, 
285 ; not an atonement for sin, 286 ; 
not a penance, 286 ; should be ad- 
dressed to God as our Father, 290 ; 
should be offered in the name of 
Christ, 291; should be in the strength 
of the Holy Spirit, 291; should be 
intense, earnest, 293 ; should be 
made for temporal blessings, 293; 
should be made chiefly for spiritual 
blessings, 294; to be made for foes 
as well as friends, 296; encourage- 
ment to, 296 ; real intensity of, 314; 
Christian elements of, 316; not to 
be for ourselves alone, 318 ; to be 
combined with pains-taking, 320 ; of 
Daniel, the answer to it was imme- 
diate, 325. 

Predictions of St. Paul, the echo of the 
prophecies of Daniel, 239. 

Pride, God will abase, 144; the great 
lesson taught in the dream of Ne- 
buchadnezzar, 144; the elements of 
human, 147; power another source 
of, 147; various sources of, 147; the 
gospel alone can humble, 149. 

Priests,no such office in Christ's church, 
399. 

Prime-minister, Daniel an honest, 196. 

Princes, God's word more powerful 
than, 67. 

Principle the path of the highest ex- 
pediency, 132. 

Promises to be turned into prayer, 294. 



Prophecies, evidence of the fulfilment 
of, 65. 

Prophecy, history of the echo of, 61 ; 
reflected even in newspapers, 84; 
study of, useful, 99 ; what it indi- 
cates by four notable horns history 
teaches, 253 ; result of study of, 254 ; 
fulfilment of, useful lessons drawn 
from, 264; spirit of, departed from 
the Jews, 388 ; years before the 
Christian era, 388. 

Prophets, all point to Jesus, 374; all 
proclaim one Saviour, 421. 

Propositions, three, which necessitate 
the sort of death Christ suffered, 
345. 

Proverb, a German, 93. 

Providence of God reveals to us the 
truth of God's prophetic word, 391. 

Psalms all celebrate Jesus, 374. 



R 



Reconciliation, Christ shall bring in, 
369. 

Refuge, cities of, an appeal to fly to, 
191. 

Regeneration not the consequence of 
baptism, 112; what it is, 149. 

Regime, ecclesiastical, not essential to 
the existence of the kingdom of 
Christ, 106. 

Religion, to some a mere romance, 51; 
real, to be showed in little things as 
well as great, 46 ; the great thing, 
49; true, nothing permanent with- 
out, 82; all nations without it dete- 
riorate, 82 ; established by law, not 
to be followed unless it be the true 
one, 127 ; evangelical, the religion 
of the Bible, 234; one only true, 
445. 

Riches, rank, worthlessness of, 98. 

Righteousness, Christ's, twofold, 99. 

Rite, nor ceremony, neither can justify, 
394. 

Roman empire, much said of it by 
Daniel, 76 ; divided into ten king- 
doms, 102. 

Roman, or iron kingdom, the fourth 
universal kingdom, 101. 

Roman Catholic, how contrasted with 
the Christian, 211. 

Rome, the fourth empire of Daniel, 
testimony to, by Gibbon, 77; Church 



INDEX. 



465 



of, to be swept away by the coming 
of the Lord, 239. 
Komish Church constructed on the 
ruins of the Roman empire, 78. 



Sabbath, when used for trade, a dese- 
cration of the holy vessels, 170. 

Sabbaths, never to be sacrificed, 53; 
the poor man's privilege, 53. 

Sacrifice and oblation ceased, reason 
why, 392. 

Salvation, what it is, 407. 

Satan, his presence in the rise and fall 
of Mohammedanism, 264; his power 
limited, 265. 

Sermon, the evidence of a good one, 
26. 

Sermons unregarded become awful 
judgments, 177. 

Seventy weeks, disputes about, 377; 
are 70 weeks of years, or 490 years, 
380; difficulties about when they 
commence, 382 ; a difficulty about, 
387. 

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, 
reference to, 23 ; their being fed at 
the royal table corroborates the fact 
that Daniel lived at the time alleged, 
24. 

Shorter Catechism, its excellence, 30. 

Sin, acknowledgment of, 299 ; not 
made by God, 299 ; whence from, 
Bible does not say, 299 ; source of 
evil, 299 ; wrong done to man's con- 
science, 299; wrong done to the 
affections, 300 ; an injury done to 
reason, 301 ; injury clone to the soul, 
301; injury done to society, 301; 
hateful to God, 301; forgiveness 
of, 307; God alone forgives, 307; 
unlike every thing else, 353 ; the 
cause of the ruin of men and cities, 
417. 

Singularity, fear it not in matters of 
religion, 129. 

Society, difference of God's and man's 
plan for the amelioration of, 109. 

Soul, importance of its safety, 51 ; the, 
kings cannot control, 122. 

Stone, which is Christ, to fall suddenly 
on the ten kingdoms, 102; France 
smitten by the, 103. 

Strabo, Babylon described by, 61. 



Strength and victory, source of, 46. 

Suffering to a Christian is paternal, 
365; to an unbeliever is penal, 
366. 

Symbol, every, has its counterpart in 
fact and history, 73 ; the four king- 
doms depicted under a new, 224 ; 
first, image of different metals, 224; 
second, four wild beasts, 224. 



Tekel explained, 181 ; how to escape 
this inscription, 185. 

Ten toes, or divisions of fourth king- 
dom, 55. 

Ten kingdoms, 55 ; description of, 90 ; 
startling fact respecting, 90. 

Thanksgiving to be made when prayer 
is answered, 57. 

Time, a, in prophetic language, is a 
year, 232. 

Transgression, to finish, the first work 
that Daniel predicts Christ is to ac- 
complish, 363. 

Truth of God lasting, 102. 

Truth needs no apology, 144; its tri- 
umph, 249 ; set forth by ancient writ- 
ers hieroglyphically, 252. 



Vial, seventh, 94. 

Victory and strength, source of, 46. 

Vigilantius opposed fasting and monke- 
ry, 280. 

Visible churches, members of, are not 
all members of Christ's kingdom, 
407. 

Vision of the king explained, 58. 



W 



"Warriors and statesmen unwittingly 
fulfilling prophecy, 80. 

Ways, many, to prove that the narra- 
tive Daniel relates is from his pen, 
24. 

"Weeks, seventy, commencing period of, 
the seventh year of reign of Artax- 
erxes, 387. 

"Weighed and found wanting, 185 ; who 
are, 185. 



466 



INDEX. 



Woman, what has raised her to her 

proper position, 364. 
Word, God's, stronger than all besides, 

102. 
Works, God's, in all, infinite detail and 

patient labour, 44. 



X 



Xenopbon, his authority to prove the 
fact that -women went to festivals, 
26; description of tbe last king of 
Babylon by, 26; his description of 



city of Babylon, 60 ; describes em- 
pire of Cyrus, 74. 



Years, 379; divided by the prophet 
into three periods, 381. 

Young men need every argument to 
convince them of the inspiration of 
Scripture, 24; a lesson to, 48. 

Youths, the Hebrew, their firm ad- 
herence to principle, 35; circum- 
stances of, 39. 



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Communion with the Past. 

The Sacredness of the Sepulchre. 

Visits to the Sepulchres of our De- 
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Lessons which the Sepulchre im- 
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The Glory of Man. 

In the Sepulchre the Conflicts of Life 

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At the Sepulchres of our Departed we 

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The Sepulchres of our Departed ad- 
monish us to be gentle and kind to 
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Posthumous Fame. — The Sepulchre 
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At the Sepulchres of our Departed we 
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holds in us and our Families. 

Future Recognition. 

The Sympathy of Jesus with afflicted 
and bereaved souls. 

Our Present and our Future Home. 

Darkness turned to Light, or the Uses 
we should make of afflictions and 
bereavements. 

Grave-yards and Cemeteries, or the 
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" Of such is the kingdom of heaven."— Jesus, 
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I've wished I were, once more, 
A little child." — Mrs. Southet. 



CONTENTS, 



INTRODUCTION. — THE WONDERS OP 
BETHLEHEM. 

The « Holy Child Jesus." The Child- 
hood and Youth of Christ. The De- 
vout Simeon, with the Infant Saviour 
in his arms. Jesus among the Doc- 
tors in the Temple. The sympathy 
of Christ with little children. The 
beauty of childhood. Poetical quo- 
tations from Wordsworth. 

LITTLE CHILDREN BROUGHT TO THE 
SAVIOUR. 

Explanation of the scene in Mark x. 
13, 14. The Disciples' conduct. 
The probable reasons of their inter- 
ference. The Saviour's displeasure 
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welcome to children. How parents 
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tive duty of bringing our children 
to the Saviour. 

THE CHILDREN IN THE TEMPLE. 

Explanation of the temple-scene, Matt. 
xxi. 15, 16. The hosanna of the 
children. The displeasure of the 
priests and scribes. The Saviour's 
vindication of the children. Ps. 
viii. 2, explained. The importance 
of early impressions. Reformation. 



National education. Sunday schools. 
Eacts, showing that children trained 
in religion will become the cham- 
pions of truth and virtue. Beautiful 
visions of the future. 

TIMOTHY. 

His early religious education. The 
influence of maternal piety. Eunice 
an example for the imitation of mo- 
thers. The "child father of the 
man." Instruction and piety com- 
bined. Encouragement to pious 
mothers. 

THE INFANTICIDE AT BETHLEHEM. 

Explanation of the scene. Seeming 
incongruity. Vindication of Divine 
Providence, in the massacre of the 
infants. Infant martyrs. The scene, 
suggestive of the following topics : 

1. The death of little children. Sources 
of consolation. Providence. Infant 
salvation. 

2. Mission of children. The advent 
of a little child in the family. The 
child at home. The sick and dying 
child. The memory. 

3. Children in heaven. Beautiful as- 
pect of the heavenly home. 

4. Recognition. Difficulties of the 
doctrine. Scriptural aspect of the 
subject. David. Recognition of the 
loved and lost in heaven. 

Conclusion. 



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